My Sixth Year: Parkinson, Pressure & Mr Al Potter
by dana-llama-saur
Summary: I object to life. I've somehow managed to bring an annoying git with stupidly pretty green eyes into my life. He confuses me, always smirking, with his... stupid-ness. Yes, I'm mad, but so is everyone in my life as you will come to notice. I've made a bet involving him. I'm helping him with the strange, dark happenings surrounding his brother. Weirdest of all: he makes me care.
1. Partying with the Ginger Clan & Co

My Sixth Year: Parkinson, Pressure & Mr Al Potter

Harry Potter: Next Generation Fan Fiction

**A/N:**

**A/N: Woo, new fan fiction! Welcome! My other one shall still be updated weekly, but this one will be quite slow with updates as I have exams to study for and then endure, fun times. I hope you like this, if you do pleeeeaaasse let me know or even if you have any criticisms! Feedback really does help a lot. Also, PM me or review if you would like a character log (with their names, parents and houses or whatever) at the end of the next chapter.**

**I do not own Harry Potter, all rights to J.K. Awesome Rowling, who left many of the characters' ages unmentioned so that we readers could come up with them themselves, which is what I have done. Also, I know Scorpius doesn't necessarily have a sister but I have heard of it being done and like the idea of it, so he has one here. **

**Enjoy! :)**

**Chapter 1: Partying with the Ginger Clan & Co.**

Once again, I have found myself in a closet at the Burrow. My little brother, Perry, is usually an adorable little guy with a wild imagination. But team him up with other six year old troopers with sticks and he's just flat out wild. He's dragged me into a rather vicious game of Hide & Seek, with him and some Weasley (he has ginger hair, what else could he be?) as the "seekers" – that's supposed to be a Quidditch term, but whatever you say muggles!

Every summer the Weasleys have a "back to Hogwarts party" and they invite their whole family and their friends and all their friends' families. It's ridiculous how many people they squeeze into this rickety house and garden. I'm here because of my dad, Ernie Macmillan – that cringe-worthy guy who dances like Rick Astley at these parties, which he calls "shindigs", or at least he used to. He said it was his way of "showing everyone that Hufflepuffs know how to "get down" too". I, personally, used to think it was his way of horrifically embarrassing me, but I would rather he still "got down" instead of being the stiff "Smalltalk man" is now. He still has his terrible jokes though? Wow, that's supposed to be a good factor... Anyway, my dad was invited because he was Hogwarts friends with the Potters and Weasleys and he works at the Ministry with some of them. My mum, Tracey Davis, was a Slytherin like I am. She's bright, well-mannered, utterly beautiful and elegant. And when I say that, I mean it; she talks to me like I'm another one of dad's work friends. When she does actually talk to me, that is. I suppose I shouldn't blame her though, seeing as I, on the other hand, am fairly smart, extremely sarcastic, have too much confidence (resulting in getting far too sassy with teachers), look like I could be someone's boggart in the morning and trip and bump into everything humanly possible. I would all but disown me too. I inherited her high cheekbones, diamond facial structure and shapely eyes and lips, but I got my dad's dirty blonde-brown hair and button nose to stop me from looking like a Goddess – like her - and my eyes decided to just do what they wanted, having mixed my dad's brown and my mum's blue into a murky blue-green. My little sister, Marie, and I look pretty similar but Perry got my mum's dark silky hair, slender nose, long eye lashes _and_ vibrant eye colour. He's a boy, that's down right unfair!

My inner strop is halted by the door opening and closing with a flash of freckles and curly red hair.

'What's the 411?' I ask my fellow fugitive.

'They've given up on Hide & Seek and are now running riot, chasing all the older ones,' Rose replies, panting against the rough coats behind us and taking her hand out of a random smelly shoe in disgust.

'So we're safe here?'

'As safe as we can be.'

'And my dad?'

'He's still on that "three cauldrons in a bar" joke,' she confirms my worst fear.

'And the others?'

'Look like they want to crucio themselves or would rather brave my dad's cooking than wait for the punch line.'

'Sounds about right. I think I'm just going to spend the whole night here.'

Rose laughs, 'amongst my granddad's horrible fishing boots and dusty coats?'

'Good point. When the kids start on the Potter brothers I'll find a more inhabitable refuge.'

'Good luck finding one of those, I couldn't.'

'Hence why you're here, in a dusty closet, with the mouthy Slytherin girl?'

Rose raises a thin red eye brow, 'actually I'm with the nice-when-she-wants-to-be mouthy Slytherin girl.'

'Aw shucks, I'm blushing.'

Heavy foot fall thunders down the hall and we hold our breaths. I pull one of the winter coats down to use as a shield, but a cloud of dust puffs into my face and I splutter with coughs, setting off Rose as well. The footsteps pause in front of the door, which slowly opens with the orangey light of the hall lamps. I grimace, expecting to be assaulted with jaggy sticks and the screams of child soldiers.

Two shadowed figures enter the closet and close the door. 'Lumos,' one says and a wand illuminates a round tan face with a pointed chin, pink lips and long wavy brown hair.

'Ah! Not so much lumos please!' I cough under the coat shield.

'Shhh!' she says, as her wand dims slightly. We could be witch spies. Are there any of those already? I hope not, it's totally my idea!

I shove the coat behind me, being careful not to breathe in any dust again. Joanna Lee Jordan and Molly Weasley II have joined the closet party.

'It's the same every year, we get hunted by crazed children, yet we still come to these parties!' Molly whispers sharply, tugging her frizzy red curls out of her face.

'Well your namesake would probably hunt us down anyway if we didn't come,' Joanna replies just as quietly.

It's true. Although Molly Weasley is a lovely woman, you most certainly don't want to make her angry. Not coming to these parties is like a death wish.

'How long have you guys been in here?' Molly asks, turning her icy blue-grey gaze on us.

'I don't even know. Since the game was actually Hide & Seek?' I reply.

Joanna laughs sympathetically. 'That was an hour ago!'

'Yeah, well I prefer sitting in here than facing certain death out there.'

Simultaneously we all nod. The adults are fully aware that this is what goes on every year, but they find it funny, seeing it as pay back on us teenagers for being miserable and grumpy and basically disowning them as soon as we hit thirteen. I'm glad that we're all safe here, but I can't help but be slightly miffed that they all know my hiding place now. For years, this has been my smelly dusty sanctuary, perfect for hiding in because it's down one of the narrowest halls with only an unused bedroom and the door is a similar colour to the walls, therefore easy to run straight past. Oh well, as long as the kids don't find it.

All of a sudden the door swings wide open and sticks are thrown at us. Battle cries ring out along with our shrieks, then, oddly, laughter.

We squint from behind our hands, up at the pursuer who is hunched over and cackling, dark curly hair tousled and in his eyes.

'Not funny!' Joanna whines.

Molly, however, uses the more effective (or at least, I find it more so) way of dealing with him: 'James Sirius Potter, you utter _prat_!' she yells, swinging a kick at his crotch, which he swiftly avoids, for her to then chase him down the hall and out of sight.

'Screw that, I'm not running!' Joanna shouts after her. 'See you later, guys,' she smiles at us before strutting after a very angry and frizzy-haired Molly.

Rose sighs and smiles at me. 'I guess if they're not even chasing James, the game must be over.'

'Thank Merlin! We can see and breathe again!' I say, helping her up to her feet and then closing the door behind us.

We walk along the creaky narrow corridor, into the slightly more spacious one. Rose leaves for the kitchen and I walk aimlessly by the customised bedroom doors. Out of the window, I can see the kids terrorising the gnomes in the garden. It almost makes me want to feel sorry for the horrid things, _almost_, but not quite. I remember when Marie was little she tackled a Gnome, brought it back to the house and dressed it up. It was pretty funny, but mum had a bit of a fit when she walked in on her five year old daughter trying to put lipstick on a furious, struggling garden creature with razor sharp teeth. That reminds me; it bit my favourite pink sparkly lipstick into pieces! I was _not_ happy about that… Now that I remember, I actually feel a bit empty inside… Oh wait, I got two new ones a week later because I wouldn't shut up about it, never mind.

Just as I spot Perry and that ginger kid trying to use Gnomes as swords and my sister making a daisy chain, I'm tugged by the right arm into an orangey-lamp lit bedroom. 'Jeez, Keren, was that really necessary?' I ask incredulously, rubbing my almost-dislocated arm.

She doesn't answer. The room looks like it's inhabited every so often, like a guest room with twin beds and some suitcases piled up in the corner. This is the room my best friends, Laura Pucey and Keren Zabini, and I usually come to when we want a place to ourselves – something which is pretty hard to find with all of these guests. I was on my way here when Perry turned up with a stick and pink lip stick on his face as war paint (I don't imagine Joanna's very chuffed about that). All of the blinds are shut and the room is dully lit by two golden lamps. A beam of white light streaks across the floor from the gap in the blinds, that Keren is peeking out of. 'What's going on? I just got out of a super spy situation, don't tell me I'm in yet another one! I haven't even stretched or practised flipping off buildings today, so getting involved in this may just be life-threatening. And you guys wouldn't-'

'Merlin's sake Heids, just come here!' Keren waves me over to the window, the back of her mass of tight black curls still facing me.

I put the back of my fist up to my mouth, 'Agent Curlz – that's right, with a 'Z' – I'm on my way, over.' I know forward rolls would be more effective but, let's face it, it's me we're talking about, I'm freaking sausage rolling over to her – my skills have no bounds.

Chloe Pucey, my other best friend who's lying on one of the beds reading the latest Quidditch Update magazine, rolls her eyes. Her sandy blonde hair is pulled back into her signature ponytail and hair band. She's wearing blue skinny jeans, trainers and a Victor Krum t-shirt from when he was actually on the Bulgarian Quidditch team and not their manager (I believe Keren – who's obsessed with muggle media – called her a "Quidditch hipster").

I finally make it to my feet, actually panting from a few log rolls – no I don't exercise very often, how could you tell? My proud grin is met with an extremely unimpressed Keren. 'Don't act like you're not impressed!' I say with a sassy click and hip pop, the frills on my summer dress ruffling.

Keren gave an exasperated laugh and rolled her eyes (I've noticed they do that a lot with me, I can't imagine why; I'm fabulous!), 'just look out the window, y'moron!' she laughs, pulling me in front of her.

'I'm not seeing anything out of the norm, Ker…' I say slowly, as my eyes scan the garden. Arthur Weasley and the Scamander twins are far too amused by a muggle-made remote control racing car, my mum is gossiping with Scorpius' and Luciana's mum and Paloma Parkinson's mum (I shall explain her later – trust me, that's a bit of a touchy subject so look forward to my rant), Mr Potter is making some excuse to abandon my dad mid-joke whilst Hermione Granger-Weasley looks horrified at being left to face it alone, and the kids are still terrorising all in their path, but that's a given.

'Not there! Over the hedge at the back!' she says through a sickly girly grin.

That smile prompts one all-too-familiar question: who's her new victim? I look over the hedge at the boys playing Quidditch. My hi-tech (it's a weird word I heard Ker say once and I thought it sounded cool) spy scanner comes into play and I recite in a robotic voice, 'James Sir-i-us Pott-er, aged sev-en-teen, sta-tus: Gryff-in-dor Quidd-itch Cap-tain and, as far as I am a-ware, a bit of a tool. Fred Weas-ley the sec-ond, aged sev-en-teen, sta-tus: Gryff-in-dor Chas-er and a nice guy, he loves the mugg-le band Muse and I feel like we bond-ed ov-er it-'

'Will you stop it? We're going to be here all night! And I'm pretty sure spy gadgets don't have a favourite band or opinions on people!' Keren huffs with her hands on her flowery hips – I would say, "looks like I'm not the only one who was force-dressed for the occasion", but she dresses like that normally. She's even wearing matching shoes, whereas I, to my mum's disgust, am wearing chunky black lace-up boots with my frilly sea green dress. Shut up, I pull it off!

'Hey! Gadgets have feelings! By the way, I'm still not sure what that muggle machine you're always going on about is. You be speaking gibberish!'

'Don't be getting sassy with me!' she points a purple painted nail at me. 'It's a _computer_. Y'know the one I spent _hours_ trying to explain while you stuffed your face with mash potato and laughed at the bear wearing a hat in one of the Great Hall portraits,' she raises a dark eyebrow accusingly.

'Mash potato was created by Merlin himself and there was a portrait of a bear wearing a top hat and a monocle, of course I'm going to laugh, that's brilliant!'

'Oh Merlin's pants, you two!' Laura yelled, slamming her magazine down and stomping over to us. She yanks the blinds open, causing me to fall over in shock – I can assure you I am capable of staying on my feet for more than five seconds, but I have barely seen daylight today! She stamps her foot like an angry toddler and points out the window, 'she fancies Louis Weasley!'

'Oh,' I sigh with realisation, 'well I already knew that!'

Keren rolls her eyes but is still sheepishly grinning while Laura face palms and looks like she wants to jump out the window. 'Why didn't you say then?' she says, her voice straining painfully.

'Well, you guys were being all secretive so I presumed it was a _secret_,' I say, with wide "well duh!" eyes.

'It's supposed to be, how did you know?' Keren asks, suddenly confused.

'Diagon Alley?'

'What about it?'

'You were looking at him like a creeper from behind the love potions stall in Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. That's not particularly subtle.'

'Oh Merlin, he didn't notice did he?'

Hand still on forehead, Laura says, 'no, he was too busy checking out "Smokey Broom Bombs" with Martin Thatcher and James. You shouldn't get so worked up about guys, Ker. They're smelly and immature, and generally not worth it. If you really like him, just be calm and be yourself. That way, if he likes you, you'll know.'

'You're right. It's just that whenever I see him I panic and hide, because I don't know what to say. I need a plan of action.'

Immediately, they look at me expectantly. I, of course, picked up on the most important detail: '"Martin Thatcher", eh Laura?' I waggle my eyebrows and wink, to which she throws a pillow at my face.

'You know I have no interest in relationships. If I'm going to be a professional Quidditch Beater, I need to focus. Also, just because I take time to remember people's names doesn't mean that I like them,' she says pointedly.

'I remember names!' They raise their eyebrows. 'I know yours and Keren's! And some of the people outside… Actually I do know quite a lot of them… Wait, who's Martin Thatcher again?'

Laura rolls her eyes – again with the eye rolling – 'he's the Keeper on the Ravenclaw team.'

'Brown quiff-y hair?'

'Yep.'

'Yeah, you're right, he's really not your type,' I smirk, combing my imaginary quiff.

Keren laughs, starts winking and doing the Elvis Presley "hip and point" move.

'Right you two, like I said, I have no interest and I have no "type". Now, if you don't mind, I am going to get back to reading about the Puddlemere United Vs Wimbourne Wasps game, while you two come up with ways to harass poor Louis.' An exasperated Laura finishes her speech from behind her magazine.

Over an hour later, it's eight o'clock and the sky is a hazy mix of blue, pink and orange. We're sitting in the living room on some pillows in the corner. Laura's reading 'Quidditch Through the Ages', Keren's swapping between Witch Weekly and some muggle magazine and I'm trying to balance random objects on my nose whilst giving her ever so helpful suggestions, such as, 'you could always strut up to him dressed as a bear wearing a top hat and monocle? That would get his attention and be very memorable.'

'For all the wrong reasons, Heids,' she sighs, trying to find a way of rubbing her dark brown eyes without smudging her makeup. She's very pretty, like Jordan, with her dark hair, eyes and skin. I've always wondered if pixies could live in her hair. It's so big and curly. 'Why are you looking at me like that?' she smirks over Witch Weekly.

'Like what?'

'Like her entire existence confuses you,' Laura chimes in without looking up from her book.

'I was just wondering if pixies could live in your hair,' I say truthfully, now trying to balance my copy of 'The Prophecy of the Sisters' on my head. Books and writing are kind of my "thing", just like Keren has older guys and muggle media and Laura has Quidditch. It's a good muggle book so far. I review books as I read them in my diary (that's right, I have a diary. Laugh it up).

She gasps indignantly and throws her magazine at me, making the book topple over and smack my face. 'Ouch! That was not very nice!'

'But it answered your question, right?'

'How? Was it the pixies that flung the book?' I smirk whilst rubbing my throbbing nose and casting a cooling charm on it.

She reaches for the magazine again.

'Ladies, please!' Scorpius Malfoy drawls as he saunters over to the couch where Albus Potter and Keren's twin brother, Alex Zabini, sit, smirking at us. 'If you are going to fight at least let it be a cat fight, this isn't doing anything for me at all.'

'Hey! She's my sister!' Alex snaps.

Scorpius shrugs aloofly, 'sorry mate.'

'Yeah, of course you are…' Alex scoffs.

'What did I say, eh? Immature and, in this case, sexist. You don't need a man, Ker,' Laura says smugly.

As if by magic – heh, get it? – Louis waltzes into the room with James, Fred and Ezra Thomas.

Keren resembles a panicked squirrel as she fumbles with her magazine and hair, readjusting the bow in it. The pixies shall not be happy, look at her moving their home around like that!

'Who won?' Laura asks them with a smile. Unbelievable, she has no interest in dating yet she talks to basically anyone and everyone who plays Quidditch with ease. Check out that smile! No I am not going to tease her about this later and yes I am a great friend.

James and Ezra fling their arms over each other's shoulders and hold their brooms up above them, wailing a very out of tune victory song.

'They "thrashed" us apparently,' Louis air quotes, his wavy blonde hair noticeably windswept, and sits on the other couch with Molly, who is booing James and Ezra for the sake of the Weasley team, and Joanna, who is laughing a little too much at James. It's official, I am adding them to my "list of couples that are inevitable" in my diary – you heard me, I make _lists_.

Keren is giggling across from me, the apples of her dark cheeks tinted slightly pink-red. I wish I blushed like that; I get an oh-so-attractive red blotchy line over the top of my cheeks and nose and on my forehead.

After a while, Molly Weasley (senior) bustles into the room, excitedly announcing "firework time!"

The sun's almost set, leaving the sky slightly purple and orange on the horizon and stars have started to show. Arthur, George and Ron Weasley are setting up fireworks over the hedge, from Wizard Wheezes, with the help of Harry Potter. It feels weird calling them by their first names, excuse me while I shake it off *Cue fit of shivers* and I'm back. Everyone is in the garden either sitting on blankets, mats, old pillows, steps or deck chairs. This is the time of the party that I've always enjoyed. It's nice seeing everyone together, especially seeing as some unlikely people come, such as the Malfoys, who, I believe, are really getting somewhere with the Potters and Weasleys. Well, I'd hope so seeing as Al and Scorpius are best friends. It's weird, although I'm in the same year as them, Laura's in the Quidditch team with them and Alex is Keren's twin, I've only ever properly spoken to Alex and perhaps exchanged a few insults with Scorpius in the corridors. But Al? No. He's always been quiet, but I don't think it's shyness anymore – it would be difficult to be shy when you're friends with Scorpius – I think he actually has quite a lot of confidence but chooses not to use it. He's always observing what goes on and I see him making his friends laugh all the time, but he rarely speaks out to anyone else, unless he's answering a question in class. Laura is always going on about his "awesome Seeker skills", something I shall be storing away for later, along with her flirty smile from earlier.

I remember the first of these parties the Malfoys were invited to. It was the summer before second year, after Al had been sorted into Slytherin and befriended Scorpius. It was painfully awkward and very tense at certain points – mostly when James was in the room. He's always picked on his brother for his sorting and they don't speak anymore. It's about something that happened in third year; Al flipped out and sent James flying into a wall. He broke his arm right before his first game as Quidditch Captain, which just so happened to be Gryffindor Vs Slytherin, and he couldn't play or find a replacement. The match was cancelled, therefore the house with the most previous wins won: Slytherin. To make things worse Keren's older brother and Captain of the Slytherin team, Ryan Zabini, then made Al a Seeker, and Scorpius and Alex chasers on the team. James was furious. No one had a clue how Al felt. He's not particularly open on the matter, or any matter really.

I should probably ask Rose about all of that, she'll know. I can do it when I congratulate her on getting Ravenclaw Quidditch Captain, which I forgot to do earlier. It must be nice getting these high positions in things. I'm the highest on most teachers and Filch's wanted lists, if that counts?

Keren, Laura and I are lounging on a picnic mat in the middle of the garden. My parents are sitting on deck chairs on the cracked, mossy patio, with Perry sleeping in my mum's lap. My sister, Marie, and Scorpius' sister, Luciana, whom are starting Hogwarts this year, are sitting on a large carpet rug with the fourth years (Hugo, Lucy and Roxanne Weasley and Lily Luna Potter). Poor Hugo, I wonder how many times he's had to scramble away from those mascara-clad girls who want to give him makeovers.

Suddenly, red, gold and green light up the sky with pops and bangs, sprinkling into shapes and fizzling back down again. Purple, blue and pink join in, making girly Keren gasp. I gave her a pink sparkly bow for her birthday this year; it took ages to get her to stop hyperventilating.

Everyone laughs as "Keren loves Louis" bursts into pink sparkles above us, including Louis.

Keren looks like a deer caught in headlights. She leans her head on her knees, causing her black mane to hide her reddening cheeks. No one knows who the culprit is until the second phrase shines in the sky: "and Molly smells".

'James!' Mr Potter yells.

'What?' he laughs.

'Nice one!' his dad gives him the thumbs up, while Molly glares at them both.

Molly Senior thunders up to him and shouts, 'you better hope that's not my name up there!'

Oh Merlin. We all prepare ourselves for the massacre. Mrs Weasley takes out her wand. Oh Merlin. Her glare narrows and Molly Junior claps her hands excitedly. Oh Merlin. She points it at the sky and the writing changes to: "James loves Joanna and James smells."

We all burst into hysterics, partly out of relief, and Louis and Fred give him a nuggie.

'Aw, such a sweet way to profess your love, James-y!' Ezra teases, while the prankster looks stunned and mortified. Mrs Weasley smugly waddles back up to the patio where she hi-fives her son, George.

Keren looks up and sighs, thankful it's over.

Amongst the laughter, conversation and flashing colours, I notice someone isn't joining in on the festivities and is, in fact, looking directly at me from the patio, where her mum sits next to mine, near Keren and Laura's older brothers (Ryan and Oscar). Paloma Parkinson, of course. Didn't I say this was coming? Our mums have been friends since Hogwarts and would always take us with them on their lunches and shopping trips. We were friends from our toddler years onwards, even when we started Hogwarts. We were both placed in Slytherin and became immediate friends with Keren and Laura. Everything was great, but then Paloma became obsessed with "popularity" in third year and began spending all of her time with her boyfriend and Michaela Nott. She drifted away from us over the year. It was infuriating. We'd been best friends for years then one day she decides, "that girl who is "out of everyone's league" called me pretty and said I could be her friend so I'm just going to trot away with her and my boyfriend and become more and more like her until I'm unrecognisable." I'm not exactly serious about many things – sarcasm and rolling around on the floor just work better for me – but I do have morals. Never will I _ever_ leave my friends to join those who think themselves to be above others and to get more attention. We used to have food eating contests, make up cheesy dance routines and generally have a laugh. Now she hardly eats, scowls at us when she sees us doing stupid dances and handshakes (I know we're sixteen, but we're cool like that) and she only laughs at people, not with them. It's all to please Michaela. She doesn't have a mind of her own anymore – I don't get why someone would do that to themselves? Sure, I don't attract much male attention, sure I only have two proper friends, yeah some people think I'm weird, I know I fall over things all the time and generally embarrass myself, and of course I don't let anyone else touch the mash potato at dinner, but I wouldn't change any of that. That's what makes me who I am and my friends accept that. She's just adapting herself to suit others and that's plain stupid, not to mention the fact that she's hurting us in the process. I honestly don't know whether I'm more angry, sad or confused about the whole ordeal. All that matters now is I have my real friends and the missing one can't bare so much as looking at me anymore – she doesn't even stop Michaela from being horrible to us, she just stands there. And, as I rant all of this to you, she has turned away from my penetrating gaze and went into the house.

So… You're all caught up now. You're aware of all the weird people (including myself) and happenings in my life. I guess you're ready to laugh at me through my sixth year then!

A mix of silver and gold explodes in the sky saying: "Happy Hogwarts!"

From the top of the garden Mrs Weasley shrieks, 'Ronald Weasley! What do you mean you forgot to put up concealment charms?!'

Now even the muggles will know that James smells.


	2. The Handshake

My Sixth Year: Parkinson, Pressure & Mr Al Potter

Harry Potter: Next Generation Fan Fiction

**A/N: I know I said updating would be slow at first, and it probably still will be at points, but I'm getting far too into this story and Heidi, as a character, so I just had to XD Thank you for my first review, favourite and follow! I was planning on writing this chapter and the next as one, but I felt it right to end it where I did. Anyway, I hope you like it and please let me know if you do! **

**Chapter 2: The Handshake**

Hogwarts, to many people, is home. People love it for its beauty and wonder, and the knowledge of our magical world that is bestowed upon them within its walls. I, personally, can't wait to go back because the beds are awesome and there's mash potato every night. My mum has gotten to the point of hardly giving me any carbohydrates at all, at home. She's worried that I'll turn into mash potato and wash away in the rain, but if you were a pile of mash potato why would you go out in the rain in the first place? Seriously mum, logic?

I'm sitting on my leather bound trunk on Platform 9 ¾, singing a Smashing Pumpkins (bet you thought they were a muggle band? With a name like that, of course they're not) song in my head and trying to ignore my little sister who is running around me.

'Is there _really_ a ghost that can take his head on and off?' she rushes excitedly, somehow not tired and panting, still circling me after _fifteen minutes_.

For ten of those minutes her new cat has been jumping and clawing at my dangling hair. I swear, by the amount of hair it's tugged out, it's trying to make a wig – dirty blonde hair on a snow white cat? 'I don't think it's your colour, sorry. Ouch! My back is not a scratch post!' I yell at it. The other students don't look fazed by me shouting at a cat, they're fully aware that I'm strange, but their parents look quite concerned. Is it possible for cats to be sassy? It had just cocked its head at me and swished its tail, giving me the slow blink. 'Marie, will you stop running around like a hyper hippogriff on Felix Felicis and do something about your cat's attitude?!'

Marie stops running and starts galloping, flapping her arms to suit my comparison. 'Is it true that you get to ride hippogriffs?' she asks, ignoring my request.

I resist the urge to roll my eyes, not wanting to be a hypocrite for complaining about my friends getting into the habit. Instead, my eyes dart and twitch quite creepily from the effort of resistance. How attractive.

'Are there really invisible flying horses? And magically appearing meals? And moving staircases? And a ghost teacher? And secret passageways? And-and-'

'Sir Nicholas can't take his head completely off because it's still slightly attached, some Care of Magical Creatures classes get to ride hippogriffs in fourth year, you're a witch – you should know about thestrals, yes, the meals are sent up to the Great Hall magically from the kitchens, yes, there are moving staircases, yes, there is an excruciatingly boring ghost teacher and yes, apparently there are still two secret passageways – one from the first building of the school and another from the repair after the war,' I spew it all in two breaths, and lay back on my trunk, panting.

'What was that? You need to talk slower, I can't hear you when I'm flying around you and you're talking so fast.'

I stop blinking and my cheek muscle twitches as my jaw clenches. 'Well, then maybe you should stop-'

'Breathe, Heids. Don't forget to breathe. Let's take your trunk onto the train.' I take a deep breath and smile at the speaker who has their arm hooked over my shoulders: Keren. She grins and gives me a hug, followed by Laura.

'If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask any of the other hundreds of students and ex-students on this platform, including our very own dear parents. Thank you, darling sister,' I smile, patting her on the head. She sticks her tongue out at me before running off to our parents and I stay sitting on my trunk and pop the wheels out, allowing Laura to pull me to the closest train-carriage door. Keren laughs and Laura rolls her eyes as I swing my feet and clap my hands like a child.

After lugging my trunk into place, next to Keren and Laura's, the first warning whistle blows and I say goodbye to Perry, not bothering to do so to my parents when all they offer me is, 'keep an eye on Marie'.

Love you too guys.

We return to our compartment and sit on the high-backed, red train seats just as the final warning whistle sounds.

It's two hours into the journey and I'm craving strawberry ice cream, for some reason. What is a poor deprived soul to do?! As though answering my prayers, the compartment door slides open with the low rumble of wheels on metal and gives way to the candy lady. She doesn't have wings or a halo, but she is my guardian angel during these long train rides.

'Anything from the trolley, dears?' she asks sweetly, her blue eyes smiling behind oval-shaped glasses, along with her thin mouth.

Laura orders three boxes of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, for the tasting game that's sure to happen later. Keren buys a pumpkin pasty, a liquorice wand and a chocolate frog. Now it's my turn: 'hi there, you wouldn't happen to have any strawberry ice cream, would you?'

The candy lady's laugh jingles, Al and Scorpius smirk from the small queue that's forming and Rose is shaking her head and laughing from the other side of the trolley. 'No, I'm afraid not, dear, sorry,' the lady replies.

I hold myself back from yelling 'BLASPHEMY!' and order fifteen chocolate frogs instead, earning many raised eyebrows and a further smirk from Al Potter. '_I felt sympathy for you, Mr Smirky. That shall be the case, no longer_!' I huff to myself. People these days; can't a girl buy half of the remaining chocolate frogs and be fully capable of eating them all in one sitting, without being judged? Well, you'll be surprised to know that I am only planning on eating twelve of them right now and rationing the rest. That is what you call self restraint, my dear children. I shall continue to teach you many more valuable life lessons throughout the year. For example, tonight, I shall show you the best way to eat mash potato and demonstrate the most classy way of falling out of a train – you're life shall never be the same.

After the compartment door clicks closed, Laura looks at me sceptically, 'hungry, Heids?'

'Not really,' I reply in all honesty. 'I'm saving room for hordes of mash potato later, so I cut it down to fifteen.'

'You cut it _down_ to fifteen?' Keren laughs.

'Yes, my dear echo,' I confirm, receiving a pumpkin pasty to the face, which I take a bite out of before handing back, of course.

Keren's mouth gapes, 'you owe me a chocolate frog for that, Mrs!'

I have a mini heart attack and hug all of my chocolate treats into my lap. 'You'll have to pry one from my cold, dead, chocolate smeared hands.'

'Wow, you're insane,' she says, quite seriously.

'I know,' I shrug.

'Anyway,' Keren starts, 'let's get back to the quiz!'

Laura groans and rubs her eyes, shielding herself from the "boy talk" magazine-armed girl, with her Quidditch book. I get the feeling I should help her but as soon as I start opening a chocolate frog box, I'm transfixed.

'Question number five: "You're going out on a dinner date. Do you wear A) a top and a cute skirt, B) a dress and heels, or C) a blouse and leggings?"' Keren reads, grinning at the tortured pile in the corner that was Laura, while I watch in amusement. Why help a friend when you can laugh at them? Don't judge, you know that's what you've been doing to me; I didn't hear a peep out of you when I was violently chased by six year olds at the Burrow!

Laura just grunts and shrugs. It's weird, she's a Quidditch player and gets up for all of the early practises but she's absolutely terrible with mornings. It's about midday now and she's still at the zombie-esque stage.

'I'll just put "C", seeing as you never wear skirts or dresses,' Keren smiles, clearly pleased with her evaluation. 'Okay! Most of your answers were "C", so… "You're a casual girl looking for a down to earth guy. There's nothing you'd like more than just chilling with snacks and a movie-'

'Wait, I want to go on a date with a "casual" guy in my _freezer_?' Laura questions in disbelief. 'Wow, muggles are strange.'

'To chill is to relax!' Keren says, exasperatedly. The fact that she knows all this is very impressive, seeing as she manages to get all of these muggle magazines somehow and keep them hidden from her father. Mr Blaise Zabini doesn't have anything against muggles (anymore), but I doubt he'd be very pleased if he found out about his daughter's obsession. 'Anyway… "You just want someone to talk music and movies with and don't care for nights out, but you won't object if he's treating you."'

'Okay, half of that didn't make any sense. I think I finally get what a movie is, but I'm not really up for testing my brain right now. So I'm just going to "yay!"' Laura whoops, half asleep.

A while later Laura is black-out asleep, snoring gloriously. Keren is now reading the latest edition of Witch Weekly and finishing off her liquorice wand, while I'm trying to make a tower of all the discarded sweet wrappers. I started off with a sturdy foundation of chocolate frog boxes, then I went onto the paper bags from the pumpkin pasties and am now on the final stage, the flimsy plastic wrappers from the liquorice wand and little mints that Laura had brought. (After sucking them for a while, they form a shape before fizzling into a minty powder. Keren got the letter "L" at one point, which she said stood for "Laura" rather than a certain Weasley.)

Just as I've finished my tower, operatically singing my victory, the compartment door slides swiftly open and I jump in fright, causing my magnificent monument to crumble to the floor. Most of it showers Laura, making her burst to life, flailing under the surprise attack.

Martin Thatcher and Adrian Vector watch the spectacle in amusement, not particularly surprised or seeing anything other than the norm from us.

'Merlin! What just happened?' Laura yells.

'I'm afraid he's not here right now, I'm sure he can take your message, but there are more important matters at hand, right now: see what you did?!' I weep to the Ravenclaws, lying mournfully on the floor amongst the wreckage of my masterpiece.

'Yeah… Sorry?' Adrian offers, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. He's actually pretty cute – brown eyes behind black stylish glasses, fairly high, hollow cheekbones and reasonably short, wavy brown hair. He's tall and lanky and his bottom lip is slightly fuller than the top one, but this all adds to his adorable awkwardness. Yeah, I know guys don't like being called cute and adorable but if he wants me to stop, then he's going to have to stop being so.

'Uh, it's fine,' I mumble, returning to my seat. I try to act natural, but it's hard to when I can see Keren grinning at me knowingly out of the corner of my eye.

Martin clears his throat, prefect badge gleaming on his immaculate robes, and announces, 'we'll be arriving within the hour so it's time to get ready.' We all nod and kneel on the seats, reaching for our trunks on the upper shelves. Then he adds to Laura, 'are you okay?'

She smiles, her blonde ponytail tousled and askew, 'yeah, I'm fine, thanks.'

With a final awkward nod, the sixth year and seventh year leave for the next compartment.

Both Keren and I exclaim at the same time but, for once, not both at Laura's expense. Keren shouts at me, 'you like Adrian Vector?! You so do!' while I tease Laura with, 'it was Martin, Laura! Martin Thatcher, the guy you were talking about at the party because you love him so much! You must be thrilled because he totally likes you too.' I grin stupidly for a few seconds before catching on to what Keren said. 'Wait, what? No I don't!' My face, as always, betrays me and turns increasingly blotchy red.

'Yes you do! There's nothing to be ashamed of, he's a nice guy and happens to be really good looking – score, if you ask me!' Her voice is reaching dog-only frequencies now.

'One, please don't say "score" in that context ever again and two, sure, I think he's cute but I hardly know the guy, I couldn't possibly like him!' I argue.

'You easily could, and you obviously do; you're blushing like crazy and when you realised he was there, you dropped your dramatic mourning act!'

'No I- Wait, what do you mean "_act_"? That tower was a thing of beauty, which I spent ages on and was very proud of! Didn't you see it? Towering above our trunks, like the all powerful King of Awesomeness? It was brilliant.'

'Nice subject change, but yeah, it was pretty cool and I'm sorry for your loss. This isn't over though!' she warns, pointing from her eyes to mine. After dressing in our robes and drawing back the curtains again, we sit back down and start on the more important detail of the previous events. Keren starts us off: 'So, Martin Thatcher, huh?'

'Oh, won't both of you give it a rest? You know that I don't like anyone and I'm not interested in dating right now. Ryan Zabini is leaving at the end of this year, so I'll be trying to prove myself the best player to replace him as Captain, which means a lot of training and focus. I mean, I'm up against his – your – _brother_!'

This is fair reasoning and I know how much getting a career in Quidditch means to her, so I'll leave it – for now. Keren, however, has other ideas, 'if you get a boyfriend who has lots of responsibilities, he'll understand and give you the time you need for that. I know, my brother giving Alex a spot on the team looked really bad, but he chose him because he was good and deserved it, just like his other choices and what with this being an important decision, there's no way he'll favour my brother. You're perfectly capable of getting Captain _and _a boyfriend – challenge yourself! And, I'm just saying, Martin has a lot of responsibilities as a prefect so he would fit the bill quite nicely,' she nudges her playfully.

'I understand that, but the rest of the team are still really great, I bet Al Potter gets it. Thanks for trying and caring enough to bombard me on the matter, but I neither want nor need a boyfriend,' she said says, firmly.

'You know what? I'm going to prove you wrong. I'm going to find a nice guy that deserves you and let him get to know you. Once he asks you out, you'll change your mind and you'll be thanking me,' Keren states with her arms folded and her chin held high.

Laura doesn't say anything – she doesn't even roll her eyes. It's clear that arguing with Keren at this stage would be pointless.

'Well the deserving point is right. He has to be really great and have a lot in common with you. The only connection I see between you and Martin Thatcher is the fact that your best friend has a crush on his,' I point out.

'I don't think Adrian and Martin are best friends,' Keren says.

'Not Adrian, I'm talking about Sir Louis Weasley,' I smirk.

'Are you insinuating that I'm only suggesting this to get closer to Louis?'

'No, I'm just saying that's all they have in common so you should probably look somewhere else.'

'And who would you suggest?'

'Someone who plays Quidditch and is in our year. That way they'll probably have more in common and there'll be a better chance that they already know a bit about each other.'

'You seem to be pretty clued up on this, care to make it interesting?' She raises her eyebrow with a cheeky grin.

'What do you propose?' I ask, suddenly intrigued by the subject.

'Twenty galleons to whoever finds Mr Right?'

I stroke my imaginary beard, mulling over the effort involved Vs the reward – what can I say, I'm lazy. After realising just how many chocolate frogs this would buy, I agree.

Laura face palms as our hands grasp together and we shake in agreement of the bet. 'This year is really going to suck,' she moans into her hands.

Very soon after, the train pulls into Hogsmeade Station and we file out onto the platform with the other students.

I watch my sister get on a boat with Luciana Malfoy from the window of the carriage, as we ascend the winding hill up to Hogwarts itself. It's actually laughable how oblivious I am to the impact that handshake is going to have on my sixth year.


	3. Odd Sorts of Sortings & the Dinosaur

My Sixth Year: Parkinson, Pressure & Mr Al Potter

Harry Potter: Next Generation Fan Fiction

**A/N: Thank you ever so much for the reviews and follows! I have a question for you all: do you think I should keep the genres as romance and drama, or change the drama to comedy? Please let me know! Also, I know it doesn't seem like a romance story either, considering that Heidi hasn't even spoken to Al yet, but wait and see…**

**P.S. I actually studied a bit today, are you proud of me? :D I'm proud of me.**

**Chapter 3: Odd Sorts of Sortings & the Dinosaur  
**

I know it's really sudden, but the way he was looking at me under the mass of candles against the starry ceiling… I just knew I had to marry him there and then. So here I am, in the Great Hall, facing my soon-to-be husband. His pea eyes glow with happiness and his carrot lips are turned up in a smile. He's wearing a broccoli bowtie for the occasion.

'If he's dressed up shouldn't you be wearing a mash potato dress or something?' Keren smirks, covering her food-filled mouth politely, while Laura freely laughs with chicken in between her teeth. That girl has clearly never been to a classy wedding like this before.

'That's barbaric! Why would I wear a dress made out of my husband?!' I cry, patting the soft pile of deliciousness consolingly with my fork.

'If I'm being completely honest, I don't think it's the lack of wedding attire that's the problem here…' Laura says.

'And how do you know it's a boy?' Keren asks, clearly still focussing on the more important aspects.

I frown and stick my fork into the pile. 'He's just _really_ happy that we're getting married…'

Laura spits chicken on me from laughing, causing me to flail around and hit my fiancé. With a _splat_, he explodes, many of his features ending up on Keren and Laura's plates. Keren hands me back my fork, trying to erase her mind of the innuendo I'd created with it.

Fifteen minutes later, I'm over the massacre of my previous fiancé and have three new exes, whom I'm slowly eating – call me sadistic, but it was never going to work out, especially with the third one; he was way too confrontational.

Anyway, you know how I've been mysteriously going on about how weird this year's going to be? Well, something bizarre has already happened and I only got here about half an hour ago:

_I watch the first years nervously jitter as they approach the platform at the front of the Great Hall. Many of them are gasping and awing at the swirly purple-black ceiling dotted with stars and candles, while others are waddling with terrified, wide eyes as though they've wet themselves. I glance across at Scorpius Malfoy, who is eyeing our sisters very closely. Marie is twirling her straight light brown hair whilst shifting from foot to foot nervously. Luciana, on the other hand, has her chin held up high with proud posture, challenging people with her confident blue stare. Despite her confidence, her short, petite form would still be difficult to spot amongst the crowd if it weren't for her startlingly blonde, long hair. As Professor Longbottom calls out their names, child after shaking child takes their place on the wobbly wooden stool and has their vision blacked out by the large and tattered sorting hat – which had been mended by Madam Pomfrey after the war._

'_Davis-Macmillan, Marie,' Professor Longbottom enunciates by the stool._

_My sister frantically looks over at me and I nod in encouragement. I'm a bit worried that her legs might cave in on the stone steps, but thankfully she makes it onto the stool safely, gripping its sides desperately. Mr Longbottom sits the hat on her head and it falls over her hazel eyes. This time the hat's silence of contemplation makes me nervous as I await the verdict. All of the students sit bored and fidgeting, just like I had been for all of the other first years, but this one holds significance to me. Though, the Hufflepuffs are paying full attention with smiles and claps at the ready, which is exactly why I'm suspecting she'll be sorted with them. My sister is a sweet and shy girl, very loyal and humble, even though she can be a hyperactive pain. She's fitted perfectly for being a Hufflepuff. I won't mind if she is, I'll be happy as long as she doesn't start telling jokes like my dad's._

'_HUFFLEPUFF!' the hat bellows._

_I shoot to my feet, cheering and clapping, showing support for the nervous-looking girl, who is probably so because of our mum. Our mum will be disappointed that didn't get into Slytherin, but she'll still be supportive of her – these things always seem ten times worse at the time, she'll realise her nerves were for nothing soon enough. Our dad will certainly be very happy though._

_Three Ravenclaws, five Gryffindors, two Slytherins and another Hufflepuff later and it's Luciana Malfoy's turn. She strides pointedly up the steps and waits calmly and patiently as the hat lowers. Scorpius starts bouncing his leg as the wait starts. I'm not sure if this is from nerves or not, seeing as guys do it all the time for some reason._

_Seeing as all that is visible of a first year's face when they're wearing the hat is their mouth, we are left to use that as a way of guessing what the hat is telling them. Normally, we get to worry about the meaning of a grimace, scowl or frown. That's why all of the fidgeters have gone still at the sight of mini Malfoy's grin. Silence remains, as does her smile. Finally, far too late for Scorpius' liking as he looks like he's going to implode, the sorting hat roars: 'GRYFFINDOR.'_

_The silence, still, remains._

_No one even whispers, no one applauds. After several tense seconds, Scorpius stands up and claps, nodding at her in assurance as she heads over to the table. There have been generations upon generations of Malfoys and not one of them has sat at the table of the brave and bold. Yet, there she was, sitting amongst the Potters and Weasleys, under the red and gold banner dangling down from above. Everyone joins in on the clapping, shaking off the surprise and shock. No one looks angry or upset about it – we're years past the prejudice of houses – but some look a bit confused and baffled. She has the same confidence as her family, the same bold looks and determination, yet she is the only one not to be placed in Slytherin? It's just a bit odd. She's sitting, laughing with Lily Potter, but she's lost most of her confidence and now looks on edge. She steals constant worried glances at her brother, who nods and mouths, 'it's okay.' It's clear that she, like Marie, is afraid of what her family will think of it, but even Scorpius knows that their dad is beyond that now. Their father's parents, on the other hand, I don't imagine will be as accepting. But as Professor Weasley – Did I mention Percy Weasley became our Headmaster last year? It's insanely weird going to the Weasley's party and seeing him there – stood up and made his welcoming speech and the food appeared on our plates, the mixed emotions of the sorting eased._

'A Malfoy in Gryffindor?' I hear you say? I know right, drama bomb! Anyway, we're back to the present, i.e. food times, the good times.

'When are we given our interview times?' Keren asks, presumably Laura – I have no idea what she's talking about and would you, honestly, ask the girl who has mash potato on her nose?

'Tomorrow at breakfast. We're given our timetables afterwards,' Laura replies, in the know as always.

'We don't have to continue with History of Magic, do we?' Keren grimaces.

'You're discouraged from dropping any core subjects, but it can still be done,' the blonde answers, pushing her plate away with the drowsiness of a full stomach.

'What are you guys talking about?' I ask, already bored, flicking a pea at Keren.

'Over the week end, every sixth year is interviewed by their Head of House to talk about what subjects they're continuing with and their career ideas, and they're given their timetable for the next two years,' Laura says, raising her head for a few seconds, from its sleepy position on the table. Keren leans across the table and wipes a squished pea from her friend's forehead, before she attempts to sleep again.

'Do you know how long they'll last?' I enquire further, suddenly interested, as time is being taken out of my week end to talk to a teacher about subjects – no thank you.

'I don't know,' Keren answers as Laura is unconscious, 'probably only fifteen minutes or so. I can't imagine that you could talk about subjects for very long, especially seeing as you did really well in most of your Owls. Yours will probably just be "hello, timetable, and goodbye."'

…

How I wish she was right.

You see, Professor Slughorn's a friendly man, but his senses and mind have somewhat deteriorated over the years. This makes many simple five minute tasks last about twenty minutes because:

He may as well be deaf.

He can't say a single sentence of relevance without going off on a tangent about his most famous students or the war.

Even when he does hear you, he tends to misunderstand or dismiss you.

Others see him as a dopey-granddad type, but, even though I can see this, I can't help but be irritated by the amount of sheer effort it takes to have a conversation with him.

He'd waddled up to Keren, Laura and I at breakfast and given us our interview times. Theirs were to be tomorrow, whilst mine was scheduled for one in the afternoon today. So, naturally, I spent the first half of the morning writing a song about unicorns and ice cream – I'd sing it to you, but it's a work in progress – and I spent the second half with Laura, trying to find out guys she's particularly close to as I'm determined to win this bet. Then, after eating three times as much as everyone at lunch, I headed for Slughorn's office. When I got there, he was already with Al Potter so I waited outside. He ended up taking _half an hour_ with Albus – I don't know why I find that name so funny, I just do – who didn't even look at me when he left. Then, he said there was a mix up and it was in fact Keren who was supposed to be at that time, so I grudgingly left to find her. I finally found her spying on Martin Thatcher – there's no way she's winning this bet with him – and took her to his office. You know what's coming next, don't you? Yep, he was right the first time, my time was correct and he was now over an hour behind in schedule, resulting in plenty of unimpressed, grumbling sixth years queueing outside his door.

And now I'm finally in his office, but still getting nowhere.

'… He's always been such a bright boy and it makes me so immensely proud to say I know him. His wife too, she was a marvellous Quidditch player and is a sports writer now, I'm sure you've read her stuff, just marvellous. Mr Potter should be returning at some point this year to teach the second years, I could introduce you to him then, if you'd like, I'm sure you would, but-'

'I already know him, Professor – I have for years, in fact, but do you think we could, perhaps, maybe, get back to my subjects?' I say with my voice quiet due to the strain of not yelling. He asked me about Defence Against the Dark Arts and went straight into a Potter Propaganda speech. My knuckles are white from clinging onto the arms of the chair. If I let go, I'll grab the timetable and run for it, screaming along the corridors and in people's faces to release the slow build up of insanity. As much as I wish to do this, there is something about Slughorn that makes it unbearable to leave him, probably the whole dopey-innocent-granddad thing. I would feel unnecessarily guilty if I left. But you know how outspoken I am, the effort needed to not go ballistic and remain polite is killing me.

'You don't know him? I can introduce you then, I'm sure. I'm sorry, what about deer? "Get back to your objects"? I'm afraid I don't understand, my dear. Anyway, what was I saying?' he all but shouts, painfully confused.

Breathe, Heidi. You can do this, just breathe. Think happy thoughts: Puppies, kittens, unicorns and rainbows. That's it, puppies, kittens, unicorns and rainbows.

Before I can calm myself enough to reply, he starts again, 'Ah, yes, Defence Against the Dark Arts. Albus Potter just left, did you see him? He's taking that subject, very bright boy, just like his father. Did I mention his father is _Harry Potter_? I know him, you know – very high in the Ministry, just marvellous-'

'PROFESSOR SLUGHORN, I WANT TO BE A WRITER, I DON'T WANT TO CONTINUE WITH HERBOLOGY AND, YES, I WOULD LIKE TO TAKE DEFENCE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS. CAN YOU PLEASE GIVE ME MY TIME TABLE?' I yell, clinging onto the chair with my eyes squeezed shut. When I open them, he doesn't look the slightest bit phased by my manic outburst.

'My hearing must be getting better. Anyway, a writer, eh? Like Mr Potter's wife, fantastic choice, but tricky to get started in – a very popular career, lots of competition.

I agree that it's probably best for you to leave Herbology, yes, but you'll have to choose another elective subject to replace it,' he says as he rummages amongst the papers on his desk for something.

Well, now I know how to get his attention. 'I thought that it was okay to drop one core subject without taking on another? Is that not how we get time for free periods?' I ask, finally relieved of the boiling pressure inside of me and now just as confused as Slughorn was a moment ago. I didn't ask it in a serious sense though. It was more like a toddler whining 'do I have to? But _why_?'

'Yes, that is usually the case, but Professor Sinistra has recommended, or rather _demanded_, that you don't continue with Astronomy. Therefore, if you're leaving yet another subject it will need replaced. I know it doesn't sound ideal, starting a completely new subject, but there's one that I think you would master very quickly,' he smiles, his moustache rising like a wriggling large, grey caterpillar.

I smirk, oh Professor Sinistra, how she hates me. I understand that many people find Astronomy fascinating, but I'm definitely not one of those people. Professor Sinistra has had to put up with me and my antics for five years and clearly can't wait to get rid of me. All of my "essays" on constellations resembled:

'_That blob of stars diagonally right to that big tree looks like mash potato. And the other one. And the other-other one. Pretty much all of them, really, apart from those two bright sparkling ones, they look like your beautiful eyes... Can I get a good grade now?_'

I would slowly zoom in when looking at the moon through a telescope and sing dramatic opera to make it seem like the world was ending. All of my homework and class work was always either not even attempted, incomplete or a song about the stars and moons and their relation to deserts, such as ice cream. I wrote her a love song once, which she tore up right in front of me and broke my heart. I caused a domino effect with the whole class, from falling down the steep, winding astronomy tower stairs, yeah that was fun. I almost fell off the actual tower itself once. I'm surprised she didn't just let me fall.

Seeing as Slughorn likes to go off on tangents, I think I'll give him one I'm actually interested in. 'And why would she ever wish to demand such a thing?' I ask, clearly and concisely, in mock astonishment.

Professor Slughorn looks slightly uncomfortable, even embarrassed that one of his star students is in such a situation. He clears his throat, 'well, it appears that you have some behavioural problems in that class. I can't imagine why though, you are a brilliantly bright girl, you've demonstrated that in my class, but Professor Sinistra insists otherwise.'

She loves me really. But, seriously, no hour long mumbling? He managed to do that just fine when talking about Mr Potter's eye colour and the time he broke his glasses, yeah, that thrilling anecdote. I shrug over-dramatically, 'I don't know, I guess Astronomy just isn't the subject for me.'

'I suppose that would explain it...'

For the first time in a conversation with Slughorn e_ver_ there is an awkward silence.

He looks like he's about to say something, but stops himself and his brow furrows.

'Elective subject that I'd be good at?' I prompt.

'Ah, yes. I believe you would catch on very quickly with Alchemy. It is quite similar to potions, with perhaps a bit of Ancient Studies and Arithmancy tied in, but mostly potions theory work with natural resources,' he smiles expectantly and holds out a piece of parchment adorned with the key points of the Alchemy curriculum in deep blue ink.

Science-y, magic-y potions, huh? Fair enough. 'Yeah, sounds good. But it says here that it will only run if there's enough demand?' I mention, unsurely.

He blushes slightly. 'I know it's hardly professional, but, being a Potions Master, I have been somewhat swaying people towards Alchemy. There is plenty enough demand this year.'

Dopey and rebellious, well that's a very hazardous mix. 'Okay. Great. Is that me done?' My hopes rise, so much so that I rise from my chair.

'One last thing: It says here that your seventeenth birthday is in November, therefore, if you wish to do so and you pay the fee, you are eligible for Apparition lessons, starting December,' he smiles complaisantly at the childish grin on my face.

'Hell yeah! Uh-I-mean… Yeah, sounds alright, I guess. I'll owl my parents about the fee.'

He beams, 'fantastic, then we're done. Here is your timetable for both of your N.E.W.T years, unless a change needs to be made at the end of this year, but let's hope not,' he looks at me as if to say "no more almost falling off buildings or writing love letters to professors." He quickly swipes his wand across parchment which has a blank table on it. As he does so, writing appears, filling in the spaces. 'Here you go, Miss Davis, I shall see you last thing tomorrow,' he beams as he bows me out of his office and a very disgruntled Alex Zabini huffs 'finally!', before swaggering into the room.

I walk briskly along the stone Dungeons corridor and into the Slytherin Common Room, actually quite happy now. Then I look at my first four classes on Monday: Arithmancy, History of Magic and then _double_ Ancient Runes. I walk over to Keren and Laura, who are lounging by the coal fire – it has green flames, awesome right? – on puffy cushions and bean bags, and read at the same time. My cheek has a seizure as all of my muscles twitch.

When I reach the girls, Laura asks, 'how was your interview?'

As they become more aware of my expression and shaking body, their smiles fade and they roll and duck behind the bean bags. I let out an extremely impressive, strangled cry, sounding very much like a dinosaur. It probably isn't helping that I'm stomping around and flailing my arms.

Everyone's looking at me, aren't they?

Well, I would too if there was a girl impersonating a rabid dinosaur in the Common Room. Can dinosaurs be rabid?

Body heaving, the dinosaur stands still. Everyone either laughs, scoffs, rolls their eyes, applauds or doesn't look surprised in the slightest.

Keren and Laura slowly peep out from the bean bags. 'Mash potato?' they ask, quietly, in unison.

'YES. MASH POTATO.'

They hurry behind me as I storm out of the Common Room to more claps and cheers. I have such adoring fans.


	4. Fan-Witching & Spy-Witching

My Sixth Year: Parkinson, Pressure & Mr Al Potter

Harry Potter: Next Generation Fan Fiction

**A/N: Hey there! Thank you so much for your support, I'm so happy that you all are getting as into the reading of the story as I am writing it! Please keep it up, I love it! :)  
**

**I'm afraid there probably won't be another update until next weekend, but if you nag me enough, I may be able to get it up sooner ;3**

**Chapter 4: Fan-Witching & Spy-Witching**

Do I look like a fish? You know what, don't answer that. My point is, every morning I wake up in this dorm and I am covered in cats – literally _covered_ in cats. I cautiously get out of my bed and creep over to the mirror, wincing at the claws that are digging into my skin. When I reach it, I can't help but be impressed: Currently I am sporting a very fashionable hat, i.e. Laura's black fur ball of a cat, Lucifer.

One of my dorm mates has a younger sister, also in Slytherin, and each of them have a tortoiseshell kitten. Every night, her younger sister's kitten comes into our dorm to join the other one in acting as my boots. Although my feet are probably going to stink even more so than usual and I can't itch my toe, which is driving me crazy, at least my feet are warm.

On top of my boots and hat, I'm wearing a nice coat of cat hair all over my pyjamas – Aw, crap! I love these pyjamas; they're parchment coloured and have little quills and ink blotches on them, and Shakespeare quotations change every minute on the chest pocket! That's right, I'm a Shakespeare geek. Call me sad, I call me intellectually cool, oh to the yeah. But now I am most certainly not a happy Heidi! I stand with my arms folded and my face furrowed and pouting like a child, at my reflection. The stroppy silence is abruptly interrupted by the wailing of the radio tuning itself in to a Quidditch report. My hat and boots protest and hiss, having been thrown from their warm home as I jump two feet into the air.

Laura draws the curtains back from around her bed and moans as the light of morning hits her. She stretches sleepily and yawns, 'Heidi? What on Wizard Earth is going on?'

See? This is the kind of greeting I get from these people. She can't even see properly yet, but she can tell it's me. You'd think that would tell me something about my reputation at Hogwarts, but right now I'm too busy rocking back and forth in the corner with cat screeches ringing in my ears.

Lucifer, the appropriately named demon cat , whom admittedly makes a fabulous hat, pounces onto his owner's bed and settles into her lap. 'Poor baby, I heard you crying, what's the matter? What did the nasty lunatic do to you this time?' Laura coos.

This snaps me out of my insane asylum routine very effectively. 'Nu-huh! I don't think so! He's not blaming me, not this time! I have his hair in my hair because he thinks my head is some kind of nest, you're radio is far too loud and my favourite pyjamas are going to need washed so many times that they'll fade!' I cry with a puckered up face. I crouch down to the scruffy ball of evil, 'are you pleased with yourself? Do you take pleasure in my pain?!'

At this point, Keren walks into the room, dressed in uniform with wet hair from her shower, and looks at me sceptically. 'That's a dramatic speech and everything, Heids, but you're whining to a cat…' she says as she pats my shoulder consolingly. 'I think it's time you get dressed. Though, you should probably shower first, what with the cat hair,' she adds, being careful with the cat hair topic.

I nod shakily and thrust my chin upwards, storming off to the bathroom, proud to be the better person. Well, as proud as someone can be after shouting at a cat in public for the second time in four days. I stalk back into the room having forgotten my clothes, and then proceed to trip on my way back to the bathroom again; the start to another smoothly running, peaceful day in the life of Heidi.

…

I don't know if there is a God or not, but some higher power must truly hate me… There was no Monster Milk at breakfast today! You don't know what Monster Milk is? Wow, I feel so sorry for you. Anyway, it's everyday milk that's been charmed so that your cereal morphs into different monsters and beasts. It's mainly only first year boys who use it, but I think it's a given that I would use something that awesome. Why eat your cereal when it's just cereal? I had to do that today and it was way too depressing. I mean, if you don't feel ready to take on a double period of Ancient Runes after eating a dragon, you have no hope.

So here I am, in Arithmancy, still scarred from the cat catastrophe and now depressed from lack of bestial cereal. Today sucks. Who even gives an angel such as me, Arithmancy followed by History of Magic and double Ancient Runes? I bet it was Lucifer; everything is that stupid cat's fault. What if I put a tutu on him? Oh Merlin, that would be brilliant!

'… and, bearing that in mind, what would happen to the magical numeric value in this formula if I were to substitute nine into the chart – let's see… Em, how about… Miss Davis?' Professor Vector asks in her elderly, but stern voice.

*Cue everyone staring at me, including Adrian Vector, as I continue to guffaw to myself like an idiot whilst drawing Lucifer in a tutu.*

'Miss Davis?' Vector repeats, with a hand on her hip and an overly-thin eyebrow raised.

I snap my head up so quickly that I get head rush and hit my knee on the underside of the desk. I woozily hold my head and rub my knee, stuttering intelligently as my obviously concerned classmates snicker. 'Um, uh… murble wurble ugh… err numbers a-and stuff… Um…'

She starts tapping her foot impatiently and I can see Scorpius shaking uncontrollably with silent laughter out of the corner of my eye. Even Rose, the Ravenclaw who takes academics very seriously, has to cover her mouth to hide her snickers. At the front, Al Potter smirks next to a sleeping Laura.

I hate you all.

I brush my hair out of my face and look at the chart on the board behind the Professor. It's one of Lukas Karuzos' from his book 'A New Theory of Numerology', although it's pretty old now. In fact, I don't think you can use it with such an updated formula. That's it! I lean back in my chair and cross my arms, just as smugly as the way Professor Vector's looking at me – she thinks I'm not going to get it, but you know what? A cat has already bested me today, so this old lady's going _down_! 'It's numerically incorrect using that chart from Lukas Karuzos' theorem. Therefore the only answer can be zero,' I answer with a bittersweet smile and a shrug. I told you I'm good at getting sassy with teachers. She's going to get to put up with this for the remainder of her years once Adrian and I get married- I-I-mean… He's cute and everything, but I don't like him! What a ludicrous idea that just came out of nowhere...

Professor Vector's smug smile drops in one swift motion and she leans over her desk, narrowing her eyes at me, 'what did you say?'

'That table can't be used with that formula, it's obsolete. So you get zero, zilch, nada, nowt, nil-'

'Yes, yes, that is quite enough, Miss Davis,' she sighs and rolls her eyes as she turns back around to the chalk board.

'You're welcome, _pro-fess-aa_!' I reply, clicking my fingers in a 'Z' formation with each of the last three syllables.

Vector's body goes rigid and she takes deep breaths to hold herself back from dangling me upside down and making me recite every theorem known to wizard kind.

As the lesson resumes, I notice Rose and Adrian smiling and shaking their heads at each other on accord of my behaviour. Adrian catches me looking and mouths 'tut-tut' at me, before turning around to face the front again. No I am not fan-witching at this and no I am not blotchy red and nervously brushing my hair out of my face. I am completely calm and collected, just as any girl, who doesn't like him, would be.

My totally non-existent nerves settle and I glance over at Rose, who is feverishly scribbling down notes. I can't believe I forgot she's best friends with Adrian. If I'm going to be a Spy Witch, something is going to have to be done about my hopeless memory. I'm pretty good friends with Rose and we've been Potions partners since a certain Paloma Parkinson requested to swap her for Michaela, in third year. I'm good friends with her and she's good friends with Adrian, so who's to say I can't be good friends with him too? And I'm clearly meaning just friends when I say "good friends".

What? I don't like him. Where are these accusations coming from? Did Lucifer tell you that? Because if he did it's tutu time and I'm not bluffing!

…

Before you join me on my action packed mission, I shall update you on what you've missed:

I went to History of Magic – I slept.

I went to lunch – I ate everyone's food.

I went to double Ancient Runes – I slept for the first period and got hit by several parchment aeroplanes. For the second period, the teacher slept and I whacked Scorpius and Al Potter over their heads with their parchment aeroplanes.

I posed in front of a mirror, using my wand as a moustache for the quick afternoon break.

I went to Alchemy – I balanced things on my face and tried to find out how many strips of the metal we were working with could fit in Keren's hair. She hit me.

I forward rolled along the stone corridor to Potions – my back hurts.

I sat down on my stool beside Rose – she laughed at me for my behaviour in Arithmancy.

I took out my wand and quill from my bag – I wheezed from the effort needed.

I smiled evilly at Rose – she looked terrified.

She asked me why I was smiling evilly – I said nothing and she continued to look terrified.

Slughorn ordered us to gather our practical equipment – everyone busied around and I pulled Rose under the desk.

She continued to look terrified – I'm going to stop this now, not only because that's you caught up but because I'm annoying both you and myself.

The point is: I'm about to do some major under-desk confidential conferring with my fellow Spy Witch.

Reminding me very much of the two Mollies – which, did you know, are a type of fish? Cat boots and people named after fish; we sure have fun on the Heidi show! – Rose sharply whispers, 'Merlin's farts, Heidi! What is all of this about?' She rubs her head after hitting it off of the counter top.

'Hey, this is serious business, don't you be running your mouth like that!' I scold.

Rose sighs, 'last time you said something was "serious business",' she air quotes, 'you asked me if you had broccoli in between your teeth.'

'Are you honestly saying that the charm of my smile isn't serious business? That is _low_, compadre,' I glare.

The redhead rolls her brown eyes, 'alright, alright, what's the serious business this time then?'

I cross my legs and look left and right, before sliding a folded piece of parchment over to her.

She picks it up and reads it quietly aloud, '"only open this if you're Rose Weasley or Merlin – who am I to tell him what to do?"'She flips it open and continues, '"what do you know about Adrian Vector?"' She smiles and nods at me patronisingly, 'quite a lot, Heids, considering he's my best friend.'

I can feel my cheeks betraying me again and I try to appear nonplussed by it, but she notices, 'you like him, don't you?'

How do people do that – one look or one blush and suddenly their psychic! 'No, I just thought he seemed like a nice guy and we could maybe eat mash potato together some time…' I mumble, barely audible.

Rose laughs. Great, she heard me. 'Why don't you speak to him, yourself? He's a wizard, not an alien!' she exclaims, getting out from under the table.

I follow her lead and we head over to our class' cabinet. Behind the glass, there are shelves stacked and labelled with each pair's equipment and completed potions.

'Because, as petty as it sounds, I wouldn't know what to say. After the "hello" there will be this long, awkward silence and I won't know what to do. You _have_ to help me, Rose!' I whine as we head back to our counter with our cauldron, utensils and textbook.

Before she can reply, Professor Slughorn stands and claps his hands to silence the class. 'Today, because it's the first day back, I figured we'd start with something we've already attempted before. I've decided that Sleeping Draught would be a good one to redo seeing as not everyone was successful the first time. You'll find the instructions on page fifty-three of your books. I'm not going to demonstrate it again, but I'll check on you all every ten minutes. Get started, I'm sure you'll all do just marvellous!' His voice faded amongst the ruckus of cauldrons boiling, ingredients chopping and textbook pages turning.

After a minute, Rose returns, arms full with the necessary ingredients. 'I think he's getting us mixed up with a second year class. How many times have we done this potion now? Five?' Rose tirades while she adds flobberworm mucus to the cauldron.

'I don't know, but serious business, remember? I need your help!' I repeat with wide, desperate eyes.

She passes four sprigs of lavender over to me to crush in the mortar, along with two measures of standard ingredient. 'Calm down, Heidi. He studies in the library every Thursday, just go up to him and ask him about Arithmancy or some other subject you have with him. Sure he can be awkward, but once you get talking, he'll warm up to you and relax. Like I said, he's a wizard, not an alien,' she says calmly and slowly.

'I suppose I could,' I mumble like a toddler in a huff, because she got the purple teddy bear instead of the pink one she asked for.

'What is so daunting about it? It's Adrian, he's hardly intimidating,' she points out.

Having crushed the mixture into a creamy paste, I push the mortar and pestle away from me and slump onto my stool. 'I'm just worried about what he'll think of me, which is stupid because I know everyone thinks I'm crazy and I couldn't care less about that, yet, I do when it comes to him.' I lean forward to rest my head on the worktop, but I end up smacking it down, bringing a hot throbbing sensation to my nose. 'Ow,' I moan.

I can sense Rose rolling her eyes – yes, it's actually got to the point where I can _sense_ the motion – and her leg brushes mine as she sits on her stool, facing me. 'It's true, everyone does think you're crazy, but when they get to know you, it's one of the things they love most about you. If one thing's for certain, it's that you should never change yourself for anyone, especially a guy. If you want to be a rabid dinosaur, to hell with it, be one! If they don't like what they see, screw 'em!' Rose grins.

I turn my head onto its side on the desk, so that I can see Paloma Parkinson. 'Oh I know not to change myself for anyone. I wish some people knew- wait, how do you know about me being a rabid dinosaur?' I demand.

'Well, it's hardly gossip seeing as it's an everyday thing for you to do, but everyone knows,' she laughs.

'I should start a magazine or something: 'The Latest from the Lunatic',' I sit up and turn around on my stool to face her. 'It can feature-'

'Heidi, your nose is bleeding,' Rose chides, giving me a tissue from her bag. 'Oh Merlin's sake, it's really heavy – it's on the table!' she continues her reprimanding, sounding more like my mum than the woman herself.

At the sound of her shout, Professor Slughorn hurries over. 'What's going on?' he asks Rose, confusion contorting his face like always.

'Heidi has a heavy nose bleed. Shall I take her to Madam Pomfrey?' she suggests with the tone of a stressed mother, already grabbing my arm.

'Someone should, but not you, Miss Weasley. I'm afraid you'll have to stay to monitor your potion.' He scans the classroom with his brow furrowed; his eyebrows acting as babies to his moustache. 'How about you, Miss Parkinson?' He hobbles over to her.

'Yes Sir?' she turns to him with a sweet smile, her choppy dark hair ruffling.

'Would you please take Miss Davis to the infirmary?' he commands rather than asks, before swiftly leaving her mid-protest to check on someone's potion.

She stamps her foot and walks out of the classroom, not saying a word to me, not looking at me, not waiting for me. No wonder people forget we used to be friends. It's as though that whole decade was a lie – either that or I imagined it all and it didn't even happen.

Rose shoos me, still in mother mode. I strop out of the classroom, along the dim corridor and up the stone steps. I can just vaguely hear Paloma's shiny little shoes hit the spiralling steps one flight ahead of me. Then voices echo from around the turn and her foot fall halts:

'Hey, Lomie! Where are you going?' an annoyingly familiar voice squeals.

'Hey! I've been told to take someone to the infirmary but they're taking forever,' Parkinson complains. Yeah, that's me: "someone".

'Who?'

Just as she asks, I round the corner, wincing into the light at the top of the stairs, where Paloma stands with Michaela Nott.

Oh, Joy to the Wizarding World.


	5. The Zombie & the Moustached Bug

My Sixth Year: Parkinson, Pressure & Mr Al Potter

Harry Potter: Next Generation Fan Fiction

**A/N: Just letting you guys know that I had ice cream a few minutes ago and it was awesome. That is all. Heh, I kid, that's not all: PLEASE REVIEW AND DO ALL THAT SORT OF STUFF BECAUSE IT'S REALLY NICE AND YEAH… Here's to the longest, and possibly my favourite, chapter yet!**

**Chapter 5: The Zombie & the Moustached Bug**

You know that guy that thinks he's hilarious, but everyone else thinks he's a prat? Well I know four of them: James Potter, Scorpius Malfoy and my legs. Why my legs? Well, they chose now of all times to cave in on themselves, hence why I am now lying on the stone stairs, clinging onto the top step for dear, retarded life, while Paloma and Michaela laugh at me. I can just imagine Merlin and his friends at the wizard pub in heaven, spilling their fire whisky from laughing at this on the rainbow TV. Hey, imagine what Merlin would be like if he got too drunk. That would be pretty funny, as long as he doesn't strip- NO, NO, NO, THE IMAGES. WHY DID I JUST DO THAT TO MYSELF? I don't think I'd be doing myself any favours in this situation if I were to throw up, BUT EWWW.

I pull myself to my feet. 'Hey, I would really appreciate it if you froze time so that I could get this fixed without having to be with these people,' I point to my nose and the snorting snobs as I call up to the ceiling, 'and eat all of the school's food supply without anyone knowing.'

'You should probably take her to an insane asylum, never mind the infirmary,' Michaela jeers to "Lomie", who has clearly found something so interesting on her shoe that it's keeping her from looking at either of us. I've called her pathetic for this on many occasions, which makes me sound horrible, but wouldn't you be rather bitter with her if she left you after ten years of friendship to hang out with the girls who wear their skirts practically around their necks? In fact, I would call her pathetic right now if it weren't for me being the one who gave themselves a nose bleed and was lying on the stairs, shouting up to the ceiling, a moment ago.

'Excuse me, I was asking drunk Merlin a very important question. Food is at stake here!' I retort nasally, as I pinch my nose with the blooded-up tissue.

'Whatever, dino. Excuse us as we go off to sort out more important matters than a lunatic with a nose bleed,' she sneers back, grabbing "Lomie's" wrist and strutting away down the corridor.

'Aw, that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me! Missing you already!' I call after them. As Michaela turns and raises her middle finger, I mouth "call me" with a wink. After successfully receiving a red lip-glossed scowl, I scuff along the marble floor towards the staircase.

You know that thing when you move your legs and support your body weight at the same time? Yeah, I hate that, why does it exist? If the staircases move, I don't see why the floor can't. I'm going to put that in the suggestion box. Actually, I don't think we have one of those, but I'll make one. I'll find a box, draw a smiley face wearing a bowtie on it, because bowties are cool, and he shall be called Alfred, because I say so.

After climbing the grand staircase for ten minutes, I pull out a piece of parchment and a quill from my trouser pocket and write: '_Day 1: I've lost a lot of blood and I don't think I'm going to make it. I've been going at least half an hour without snacking, which is never good. When they find me, probably still on the second step, I hope they're not too late. I'd like to be buried in mash potato and ice cream_-'

'Heidi?'

I gingerly look up to see Adrian Vector curiously peering down at me. It takes me a while to remember that I'm lying on the stairs, covered in blood and casually writing my will – if that doesn't scream ATTRACTIVE and SANE, I don't know what does.

'Are you okay?' he asks, kneeling down and dropping his books in the process. We both severely lack coordination, it's meant to be!

After some intelligent stuttering – I'm pretty sure the complex and totally-not-made-up words "blarble" and "boingle" were in there somewhere – I reply with, 'yeah, I just have quite a heavy nose bleed.'

'Shouldn't you be going to the Hospital Wing?' he asks, his eyebrows furrowing, most likely out of bewilderment as to why I'm just lying on the stairs whilst writing about being buried in food, but I like to think it's out of concern.

'Uh, yeah, but… Stairs…' I point up the steep marble mountain with a bashful smile – oh Merlin, no. I used to not care for dating or anything like that, but now I'm there, I've crossed the line; I'm smiling _bashfully_. Hell no! This is never a good sign.

'Ah, I see. Do you require some assistance?' He laughs and holds his hand out. He mistakes my dumbstruck expression for confusion, adding, 'I'm on a free period.'

I'm afraid my gaping mouth and immensely attractive frog eyes are actually reacting to the prospect of spending several minutes with him and holding his hand for a mere few seconds – this isn't healthy.

After pulling me up, he gathers his fallen books, one of which I pick up for him. I personally think that this moment should be documented in the next 'Hogwarts A History', so that we can read it to our Grandchildren. What? I swear I'm not usually such a creeper, but, like I said, I've crossed the line! Actually, I've crossed it in quite a quick space of time, now that I come to think about it. It must be the rabid dinosaur hormones… What am I even saying? Let's get back into the plot and out of my head, before I mentally scar myself again. This happens way too often.

'Thanks,' he smiles, tucking his books under his arm. He starts the journey up the stairs and I pant by his side like an exhausted dog that strives on to stay with their owner.

'Are you okay?' he asks. 'I mean, apart from the nose bleed.'

'Eh, yeah, I'm just extremely unfit,' I admit, between wheezing breaths.

He looks torn between laughing and being truly scared for me. 'How come you stay in good shape then?' he asks. When he realises it could come across as rude or creepy he adds, 'not meaning to me impolite, it's just that I've heard you have quite a… eh… _passionate_ love for mash potato?'

'Because I'm naturally a hot piece of ass.'

Merlin, I said that out loud, didn't I? Seriously, I'm asking you a question drunk Merlin, why do you hate me?!

Adrian laughs then pouts and nods, 'fair enough,' he says.

I do believe I owe you an apology, drunken Merlin, your greatness. Adrian Vector basically just admitted that he thinks I'm a "hot piece of ass", so romantic and moving. I'm trying my best not to giggle (the bashful smiling is bad enough) but he's carrying a copy 'The Merchant of Venice' under his arm and my fan-witching is reaching full capacity.

After a short pause in conversation, I don't know if it was awkward or not seeing as I was busy praying to a drunken wizard in the skies, Adrian says, 'I'm sorry about the destruction of your wrapper tower on the train, by the way. It really was very impressive,' he smiles.

Are you trying to break me? Why must you be so perfect in every way Adrian-ly possible?

'Thank you, that means a lot. Sometimes I wake up at night, hearing the crinkle of its paper bags, but then I realise that it's gone and that I was only dreaming,' I jokingly sob and wipe a nonexistent tear from under my eye.

He laughs and shakes his head, 'you're really something else, aren't you?' He adds, in all seriousness, 'I certainly haven't met anyone like you before.'

'Whatever do you mean? I'm just your everyday insane, hot piece of ass,' I explain, proudly, with my nose still pinched in a tissue.

'Of course,' he nods sincerely, a smile threatening to ruin his serious façade.

I've just realised that we're way past the stairs, heading down the long corridor with the large double doors to the Hospital Wing fast approaching, and I'm not wheezing anymore? This guy is a freaking cure to unhealthy-Heidi-itus. What a shame, looks like I'm going to have to spend all of my time with him. Speaking of such things, the awesome time we're spending now is about to end. Back up, I need back up. Mission "stop Adrian from leaving" is all go. Agent Curlz, do you read me?

WHY DO PEOPLE NEVER REPLY WHEN I TALK TO THEM IN MY HEAD? Some people are beyond help, crazy, I tell you, crazy!

I'm shocked out of spy-witch mode as I realise the silence is actually comfortable. I hate to indulge the all-too-clever girl, but Rose was right – it turns out you can, in fact, spend non-awkward time with Adrian the Adorable Nerd Vector. That's his full name, if you weren't previously aware.

Said adorable nerd holds one of the heavy wooden doors open for me. Upon entering the Hospital Wing, Scorpius Malfoy barges past me with a bruise marking his sharp left cheekbone.

Madame Pomfrey looks up from dabbing ointment on a blooded bruise on James Potter's cheek, who is glaring after the white-blonde's retreating head. Oh dear, what happened here? Heh, that rhymes.

The matron bustles over to us, horror and annoyance pinching her face in as she soaks in the sight of my blood stained uniform. 'You better not have caused another incident on the Astronomy stairs, because I do not have time to sort out a full class of pupils right now.'

I grunt as she takes hold of my nose and uses it to lead me over to the first aid bench. Her other hand sits angrily on her hip. 'Lean your head back,' she orders and I obey, pouting my bottom lip at Adrian, who wags his finger in a scolding manner.

He's definitely seeing me at my best; covered in blood, wondrously displaying my nostrils, not to mention my hair resembles the whomping willow right now.

'You're free to leave, Mr Vector. You're grandmother tells me you have an Arithmancy paper due for Wednesday, I think it's best you get started,' Madame Pomfrey huffs stressfully, busying herself with my bloody face.

No! He can't leave! What are you playing at Pomfers?!

Adrian, who was rather calm and politely content before, narrows his eyes at the woman. That's right, you glare that bitch down, Adrian! Although I'd like it if he were giving her such a look because she's sending him away from me, I highly doubt that is the case seeing as we have just had our first full conversation. Maybe it's because she called his mother his grandmother? She's definitely old enough to be his grandmother, but everyone's always said that Professor Vector is his mum. Perhaps, the death stare was out of embarrassment at his mum (or whatever she is) talking about him to other members of staff? Either way, Agent Dino has taken note of this for investigation.

Still appearing to be rather miffed, Adrian heads for the door, giving me a curt nod with a forced smile, lips pressed tightly together.

Before I can say goodbye, Madame Pomfrey pinches my nose quite painfully, making me object with a jump and an 'OW!' at which she rolls her eyes and throws her nose pompously into the air.

Adrian is gone. I'm sorry for cursing to you whenever my happiness is taken from me, Merlin. I now understand that Pomfers is to blame for all wrong doing. She's had a grudge against me ever since the Astronomy stairs incident and I get to put up with her huffing and agitated remarks every time I'm sent here, which is a lot; I'm not sure if you could already tell, but I'm pretty accident prone. I like to think of my constant stumbling and flailing around as my own type of interpretive dance.

I'm tugged from this analogy by a nagging point in pompous Pomfers' dismissal of Adrian: WE HAVE AN ARITHMANCY PAPER DUE FOR WEDNESDAY. I was probably too busy drawing Lucifer in a tutu, running away from me riding a unicorn, to have heard this depressing news in class. Why are there so many cruel people in the world? What kind of person gives you a paper to do on the first freaking day back?! I'm honestly not seeing how Adrian the Adorable Nerd Vector came from such monstrous genes. So now this week just got a whole lot less fabulous. It's a good thing that I'm so intelligent, intellectual and organised then, isn't it? At this thought, I abruptly break the silence with a bark of crazed laughter.

The two ill patients on hospital beds stir and groan at the sudden noise. Madame Pomfrey jumps back from me looking genuinely terrified and James pays me no mind, sitting at the back of the room, rubbing his forehead and glaring at his feet.

'What on earth is wrong with you young lady?' Pomfers snaps, straightening her nursing bonnet on her pile of light grey curls.

I decide that it's best not to share my inner musings. I grin at her and nudge her arm enthusiastically, 'I was just thinking of all the good times we've had. Remember when I gave myself a concussion from running into one of the poles on the Quidditch pitch? The funny thing is,' I chuckle, 'I don't even play Quidditch!' Great, I sound like my dad. When Pomfers' face turns a horrific deep purple, I drop my cheesy grin and look down at my hands. She looks like she's going to eat me so I think I might keep quiet for a while.

After a rather awkward five minutes, Madame Pomfrey has cleaned me up and sent me back to class. As I wander along the corridor, back towards the stairs, I hear a voice call my name from behind me. I turn around and see Laura running up to me, blonde ponytail swinging, with Al Potter strolling nonchalantly behind her, hands in pockets.

'What happened to you?!' she exclaims.

Taking in my bushy-haired, blood stained reflection in one of the high-arching windows, I answer with, 'I had a bit of a nasty run in with a zombie but, it's cool, the situation has been neutralised-'

She arches a sandy eyebrow at me and folds her arms stubbornly.

'Okay, okay! I hit my face on the work top too enthusiastically in Potions and got sent to the infirmary with a heavy nose bleed,' I confess, avoiding her gaze as I tuck my hair behind my ear in embarrassment.

'Wow, that is a new one, not quite your personal best but still rather impressive,' Laura slings her arm around my neck.

Oh so luckily for me, Al Potter caught up with us just in time to hear my joyous story and is now smirking as he walks with us.

I ignore him. 'What are you guys doing out of class?' I ask Laura.

'We're on our way to the Headmaster's Office,' she answers truthfully, clearly not gifted with realistic back up stories like I am.

I gasp exaggeratedly, 'what did you do, you naughty girl?!'

She laughs in disbelief at me, '"naughty girl"? Nice, Heids. We've been sent as witnesses of James and Scorpius' fight.'

'Oh yeah, I saw them at the Hospital Wing. What, like, happened there?' I ask in my best "OMG" gossip girl voice.

'We're not sure. We were on a free period so we headed down to the pitch to do some extra practice, but when we got there we found James and Scorpius throwing their fists at each other's faces, with their wands lying forgotten on the grass. The Gryffindor team was there cheering James on and Luciana Malfoy just stood looking annoyed but not stopping the fight,' Laura explains. 'Alex Zabini was with us, but he joined in with the fight, the stupid git.'

'Hey!' Al Potter warns, defending his friend and finally making his presence heard.

'Well, sorry, but it wasn't exactly helpful!' She reasons.

He shrugs and goes back to staring blankly ahead.

'Well, it's been an eventful first day then,' I sigh. 'Do you think the fight had something to do with Luciana?'

Laura nods, 'It's very likely. I'm pretty sure Alex and Scorpius are already there, getting screamed at by Professor Weasley, his face the same colour as his hair.'

I laugh, 'sounds about right.' Just as we reach the descending stairs I bid her good luck and adieu. I sit myself on the banister and slide down it, only stumbling once on landing, something that I'm far too proud of.

I hear Laura whoop in congratulations and it echoes around the high ceiling of the ground floor. Al Potter just smirks. Seriously, what is it with the smirking?!

When I get back to class, Rose is sitting by our cauldron, popping bubbles in the clear purple liquid, looking pitifully bored. She lights up when she sees me, thankful that the boredom has come to an end.

'So you're all better now?' she checks.

'Yeah, apart from my appearance, but people haven't been looking at me any differently – they're just as terrified as usual,' I inform her.

She nods and our timer dings, signalling that it's time for the next stage. She turns the heat off, I add two measures of standard ingredient and she turns the heat up high.

'Have you ever seen what Adrian is like when he likes a girl?' I ask her while she sets the timer for one minute. 'Is he more relaxed or is he nervous and awkward?'

Rose ponders this for a moment. 'I'm not sure, he's always been an awkward person, but he's pretty laid back around people he knows or people he just naturally gets along with, I suppose. Why?'

'Miss Parkin-her-high-heeled-foot-on-your-face abandoned me to go press her nails with Michaela Nott-so-nice, so Adrian offered to walk me to Pomfers' place when he found me on the stairs – literally, I was lying on the stairs – and he wasn't awkward at all. He actually made me wonder if he was flirting at some points, but maybe I just thought that because it was what I wanted to hear, I don't know. He was just really relaxed and it got me thinking, wouldn't he be more nervous if he liked me? Or is the whole calm and cool think, because he feels he can be that way with me? I'M SO CONFUSED.'

Rose smiles sympathetically, 'well, I don't know if there is a certain way people act when they like someone, because they're likely to fancy more than one person in their life time and different people act in different ways. For instance, Adrian was pretty nervous around his first crush, but that was because she was very intimidating, whereas you're friendly, albeit more than slightly mad, but still friendly and easy to talk to. You just walk up to random people and start conversations with them, although they may be quite scared if you start it off with "how comfy are your shoes?"' that was the first thing I ever said to Rose, in case you wondering, 'but people can warm up to you quite easily, because your confidence is contagious. So, just as someone is compelled to feel awkward around someone who is naturally awkward, he feels confident when talking to you because of your own personality,' she finishes, clearly pleased with her theory.

The timer dings again. I add four Valerian springs to the potion and then Rose stirs it seven times clockwise. I wave my wand over it and she turns the heat off.

I frown in sad confusion, 'I suppose that would explain it, I do have a lot of conversations with strangers, some aren't mutually appreciated but most are pretty down to earth.'

Rose adds, 'Adrian's a good bloke, if he were to see anyone he didn't talk to covered in blood on the stairs, of course he'd take them to see Madame Pomfrey, but did he stay with you after you got there?'

I nod, 'right until he was told to leave.'

'Then there you go,' she smiles. 'There's a good chance of something being there. Just say hi to him whenever you pass him by and have little conversations with him outside of class. You could always ask for his help with that Arithmancy paper,' she suggests.

'Good idea,' I brighten up visibly. 'Thanks Rose. You're too smart, you know that?'

She scoffs and flicks her red ringlets over her shoulder, 'I really do, Heidi, I really do.'

I laugh and shake my head – finally, I get to be the one that does that! Feeling satisfied with her reasoning, my confusion and worry eases and I remember the other topic I was going to quiz her on. 'Is anything going on with the Gryffindor Quidditch team?' I ask her.

She smiles at me perplexedly, 'I'm not on the Gryffindor team, silly.'

'I know, but I was just wondering…'

She frowns slightly, 'uh, I don't think so. I know that they need a seeker?'

Then it clicks, 'Luciana Malfoy sometimes plays as a seeker at your family parties, doesn't she?'

Rose nods and her frown deepens. 'What's going on?'

'When I was at the infirmary, Scorpius stormed out of the room with a bruised cheek and James was sitting at the back in pretty much the same condition. On my way back, I came across Laura and Al Potter and she told me that they had gotten into a fist fight on the Quidditch pitch. She said that the Gryffindor team was there and so was Luciana,' I explain, my voice getting weaker as I go, as Rose's nostrils begin to flare.

'That git! Why does James have to be such a prat?!' she shouts, gaining some odd glances from around the class. Of course, Professor Deaf Slughorn didn't so much as flinch. I actually think he's sleeping with his eyes open. Oh Merlin it's creepy. While rose wrings her hands threw her hair and repeatedly knocks her forehead against the edge of the worktop, I go up to Slughorn's desk. I wave my hands in front of him, but he remains still and silent. Suddenly, when my face is merely inches from his, he snores and I leap back with a yelp. Unable to take anymore of the creepiness, I lift his reading glasses from the cluttered desk and dab drops of ink onto the lenses. After spreading it over the surface of each lens, I carefully place them on the snoring professor's face. When I take a step back to admire my work, I find that he looks like a rather old, large, bizarre, maybe even Mexican, insect, what with the huge ink-blue eyes and big furry moustache. As I head back to my stool, my work is revealed and most of my classmates giggle whilst others, mostly Ravenclaws, shake their heads in disapproval.

I sit back down next to Rose, who is exactly in the same state in which I left her. 'Sorry, the open eyes were really creeping me out. Anyways, are you thinking what I'm thinking?' I pose.

'That James has given Luciana the role of seeker, without even holding trials, just to get back at Al for the whole sending him into a wall and joining the Slytherin team thing?' She guesses, her voice muffled by her curtain of red curls, as her head lies on the desk.

'Well, I was thinking about getting Peeves to drop food colouring into the mash potato for dinner tonight, because why have normal mash potato when you can have a mash potato rainbow? But, that's works too, I guess,' I shrug. 'Wait, how would that get back at Al? Is that not more of a go at Scorpius?' I demand, puzzled.

Rose sighs exasperatedly and sits up, 'because we all know how good she is, she's his best friend's little sister and they both play against each other. You're right in saying that it's a pathetic jab at Al himself, but it'll still infuriate him; he's one of those people who are more likely to be angrier at their friends being hurt than themselves and it's clearly riled up Scorpius.' She sighs again, 'James is just causing unnecessary drama because of a stupid grudge from years ago. This is one of these tiny things that'll escalate ridiculously more and more as the year goes on. I wouldn't be surprised if another fight like this happens again at some point throughout the week. It's ridiculous. We're never going to hear the end of it, just because two brothers don't know how to apologise to each other.'

Now it's my turn to sigh, 'it makes you think about the whole Gryffindor Vs Slytherin prejudice doesn't it? Aside from the fact that James' teasing of Al being sorted into Slytherin was what started all of this, the progressing events, including this one, get you thinking, what if the prejudice returns because of all the tension? Everything was getting better as well…'

We both sit with our heads in our hands, feeling grumpy and depressed by the thought. There goes my bright mood.

Rose quickly shakes her head, ridding herself of the dullness. 'Let's talk about something else, shall we? What's going on with you, any interesting things coming up?'

I follow her lead, shaking myself, 'Em, apart from the mash potato rainbow thing, I don't think so. There's the apparition lessons, but most of us will get those.' She nods along half heartedly and then I remember, 'oh, I have a bet with Keren?' I raise it as a question to see if it grabs her interest.

Just as I suspected, her features brighten and she leans in, 'on what?' she asks excitedly.

'Who can find Laura's Mr Perfect first, henceforth giving her a boyfriend, finally, and a date to the Halloween Dance,' I declare enthusiastically. 'Right now we're at twenty galleons, but knowing how competitive we are, it'll probably go up.'

She beams, 'who are you betting on?'

I grin cunningly and waggle my eyebrows, raising her hopes up and then I come clean, 'I have no idea.'

Her smile drops and she rolls her eyes.

'But Keren's betting on Martin Thatcher,' I state, combing my imaginary quiff and shining my nonexistent Prefect and Head Boy badges when I say his name.

Rose sniggers, 'they're both really smart and everything, but… I don't think he's her type. The only reason he's the keeper on our team is because being a chaser, beater or seeker would mess up his hair.'

'My point exactly. His love for his hair and the ego boost the badges give him will always outdo any love for an actual person,' I tease. 'Can you think of anyone I could bet on?'

She thinks for a moment, a sly smile pushing at her pressed lips. 'Well, he has to be into Quidditch, seeing as that's what she lives for, so Keren's at least right in that field. I think someone smart would be right as well, but a lot more down to earth than Thatcher. What about Al?' she offers, the grin finally breaking through.

'Yes! Why didn't I think of him before? She's been on the Quidditch team with him for two years, so they know each other fairly well and they talk quite often. She was even heading for extra Quidditch practice when they came across the fight. They're both always sleeping yet manage to get annoyingly good grades despite it,' I list excitedly. Finally, I've found someone! 'They're perfect together!'

'You're Welcome,' she smirks, reminding me of the lucky man himself.

'Okay, I just need to figure how to go about it, seeing as I don't talk to the guy, there's no way Laura's going to help me by flirting – that's actually pretty funny – but I don't want to spy on him like a creeper, like Keren is with Thatcher… I just need to figure out an excuse to talk to him without being weird, which I'm sure will be impossible. I'll plan it all in my diary- I mean journal! Yes, my mature, grown up journal, for serious notes and all important matters, and life documentation in a serious format – fancy bullet points and font, I curl my Ys-'

'Okay, Heidi, I respect your "fancy journal font", now back to what you would call "the mission"?' she proposes, air quoting.

'Aw, you learn so fast! I'm getting teary-'

She picks up our textbook and goes to hit me on the head with it.

I quickly avert myself back on track, 'okay! Okay! Give me something I can randomly walk up to him about, without sounding weird!'

'It's you! Like I was saying earlier, you can have conversations with anyone!' she shouts, completely baffled by my worry.

'Yeah, but this one actually matters! If I scare him off, I probably won't find anyone else and that'll be me out of twenty galleons. If I go up to him and ask him if his shoes are comfy, he's not going to listen to my dating advice, even I know that much,' I argue.

'Okay fair point but-' she's cut short by the school bells chiming, signalling five o'clock, the end of classes. Rose's face falls serious. All signs of our previous banter gone, she hurriedly gathers her things and heads for the door.

I shout indignantly, 'what's the rush? Running is a sin!'

'Sorry, Heidi, could you please clear up? My foot has an appointment with a certain Potter prat's balls,' she yells back, over the clanging of tidying up, the screeching of moving stools and the thud of hurried footfall.

'Which one? Can I come?' I whine childishly, but she's already gone, along with the rest of the class, leaving me to clear up, alone. Lucky me.

Once I've put our equipment away along with a vial of our sleeping draught, I gather my things and head for the door. A grunt and snore stops me in my tracks and I turn around, finding Slughorn the insect still dozing. I scan around the various worktops and counters for something metal and I spot some equipment one pair or students hadn't bothered to put away. I adjust my bag on my shoulder and pick up a ladle. I whack it against a pewter cauldron, causing a magnificent dong worthy of the school bells – which are still going – to ring out. The insect splutters to life and whips his head around frantically. I bolt out of the classroom and head for the Slytherin common room, quite pleased with myself.

Just before rounding the corner I hear, 'oh goodness. It's awfully dark in here, isn't it, class. Right, that's the bells, everyone clear up-' CRASH.


	6. Stay Classy Davis-Macmillan

My Sixth Year: Parkinson, Pressure & Mr Al Potter

Harry Potter: Next Generation Fan Fiction

**A/N: I'm so sorry for the wait! I've been juggling my two fan fictions and studying for my exams so both of my fan fictions have suffered. I wish I could say the next update will be quicker but it will probably be another two weeks, possibly more, seeing as I have eight subjects worth of exams starting the 24****th**** and ending on the 16****th**** of May. After then, updates will be FAR more regular. It's just a little set back because I've realised how little I know and how soon they are :L WISH ME LUCK, I NEED IT.**

**Anyway, here it is at last! Thank you for the reviews and please keep them coming, they will help to motivate me to get the update finished in the two weeks! ;) There are quite a few references in this one, Harry Potter and otherwise, including the chapter title, so please feel free to guess them! I couldn't help but put them in, they were too awesome to resist XD**

**Chapter 6: Stay Classy Davis-Macmillan**

Did you know that it's extremely difficult to sleep with an owl on your head? I'm really sympathising with trees right now, they have to put up with this all the time. I think I'm going to add hi-five and hug some trees and tell them to stay strong, to today's agenda. What was that? Why do I have an owl on my head? You see, my sister got a devil cat for her first year pet, whereas I got a red barn owl. It was really cool at first, actually pretty smooth for an owl, which is why I called him Ray. But then I thought I could make him smoother by putting sun glasses on him and he enjoyed it way too much. Ever since, he's been a diva with his Nocturnalism, downright refusing to be in daylight for more than two minutes. This means that he doesn't deliver my mail at breakfast with everyone else's. He delivers it to me at FOUR IN THE MORNING and stays in the cosy darkness of my curtain-drawn bed until dark comes again. It just so happens that he found my head to be the most comfortable spot this morning and I swear he's pooped in my hair. The only positive points are that my head is warm and the cats refuse to cling to me while he's around – that's right, this sassy bird beats the cats. But then again I'm not sure if owl poop is any better than cat hair and I've not been able to get back to sleep properly for about an hour now, so I think I'll check today's agenda and make an early start – I know, "early start", I can't believe it either, but here I am, awake at five o'clock.

I sit up and Ray stalks along my spine, down to the bottom of the bed, and ruffles his feathers, making them look suspiciously like a reddish-brown feather boa. I grunt when his talons nip my skin and pull my diary- I mean documentation journal out from under my mattress. There it is; leather bound cover and, no, it does not have sparkles on it, I don't know what you're talking about…

Moving swiftly on: I flick through the ink scrawled pages until I reach today's date. There is written my plans for today:

Use up all of the Monster Milk at breakfast and watch first years' souls breaking. It sounds cruel but to be as composed and caring as I, you have to have your sadistic moments.

Intimidate Ker with my inevitable win of the bet (in other words, crumble under her decent comebacks and pathetically answer them with "your face" or "your mum").

Run around the corridors for first period, making faces at those in class while I bask in the brilliance of my free period.

Suffer from the withdrawal symptoms of free periods when I'm then tortured with Ancient Runes. It is also notable that I shall be graced with Adrian's pretty face in this class.

At lunch, do my usual impersonation of a hoover.

Commence faze one of mission "Alaura": try to get partnered with Al Potter in Defence Against the Dark Arts and make remotely human conversation.

Try to make a moustache as great as Professor Flitwick's out of the props we're given, in Charms.

Repeat Step 3 for yet another free period (I love Fridays).

I close my diary and put it back in its unbelievably original hiding place. After pulling my bed curtains back just enough for me to wriggle through, so to not upset Ray, I gather my uniform and go for a shower to clean the owl poo out of my hair.

It's now six o'clock – I take quite a long time with my showers, which totally do not consist of me waking up my dorm mates with my beautiful operatic renditions of wizard metal songs – and breakfast won't start until half past seven, so I've decided to fit in the whole "tree hugging and supporting" thing now. Because I'm a weakling when faced with a classic book, I read my copy of 'Emma' by Jane Austen as I walk down the sloping grass to the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest.

The sky is a dull blue dusted with white and the sun battles the faint slither of the moon for dominance. Despite the refreshing chill of morning and the clouds dotting the sky, it seems as though today shall be warm and pleasant, well, as warm as Scotland can be and it shall probably only be pleasant for me what with my two free periods.

I sit down on the mildly dewy grass, leaning back against a tree and patting its rough trunk. 'I feel your pain, bro,' I console it. 'Shall I read to you?' Without waiting for a reply from the towering plant, I delve back into my book, this time reading aloud.

Of course, it would be this time, when I'm reading to a tree, that the Gryffindor Quidditch team chooses to return from their practise. Out of the corner of my eye I see Blake and Darius Peters pay me no mind as they hike up the path, while Joanna and Ezra laugh and wave to me I don't look up as I have no intentions of interrupting the dramatic flow of the story, but I give them a wave. I peer through the hair that's fallen in my face to see Fred talking enthusiastically about something to James, who appears not to be listening as he stares darkly at the ground, his face still scarred. My Spy Witch radar sets me on alert as I realise that Luciana isn't with them. I finally look up to confirm this, before closing my book and heading down the sloping grass at an awkward jog-walk – seriously, who runs? Such a thing should not exist. I call an apology to the tree for my sudden absence.

'What's your new mission?' I hear you ask. It is to find Luciana and decipher an update on the Quidditch rivalry. I know it's none of my business and that I'm being incredibly nosy, but as well as being a Spy Witch, Fan-witch, Potions and Arithmancy whizz and mash potato enthusiast, I like to think of myself as a detective. I'm just doing my job.

When I reach the Quidditch pitch, no sounds of the sport are to be heard; there isn't the whir of Snitches or the whooshing of brooms and Quaffles soaring. I perform my signature sausage roll once I reach one of the entrances to the stands. Instead of taking the creaky steps up to the benches, I duck underneath the stands and weave through the supporting beams. I keep going, like a mouse scampering through a pipe, until I near the raised voices of an argument. Upon passing one of the gaps in the stands, I see a blur of green and red robes and fall back to find the Malfoy siblings yelling at one another, whilst Al Potter stands by them, raking his hands through his hair and looking quite conflicted as to who he should be supporting or how he should go about stopping the argument. I approach the gap and peek out of it, my back crouching so to not hit it off of a beam.

'When are you going to actually think this through and realise that you're being used?' Scorpius shouts.

Luciana leans up onto her tiptoes, to appear less intimidated by her tall brother. 'When are you going to stop being a baby and realise that some people actually appreciate my talent?' she retorts.

'You know that's not why you were chosen to be on the team! You know bloody well that all James cares about is getting back at us, and who better to throw us off our game than my baby sister?!' he yells in reply.

'Not everything is about you, Scorpius!' she shrieks before storming off.

'Luciana, wait!' Scorpius calls to no response. He kicks the grass in defeat, and slumps onto it, bringing his knees up to his chest.

Al Potter sits down next to him. 'Maybe we're just being paranoid. After all, your sister_ is_ a really great Seeker,' Potter muses.

I strain my ears to hear their now lowered voices.

'You know better than anyone how pissed off James was after the incident in third year. There's no way he has let it go so easily,' Malfoy dismisses. When Potter only smiles half heartedly in return, Malfoy speaks his friend's thoughts, 'I know I shouldn't get so wound up about this, but… it's unnatural how much it infuriates me; he's just using her as a pawn for some revenge fantasy, quite a pathetic one at that.'

Potter sighs, 'it's certainly far more of a play on you than it is on me, if anything. Even though we haven't spoken to one another for a long time, James is still my brother, I know him. He wouldn't let a grudge against us cloud his judgement, especially when it's Quidditch at stake. Sure, he probably took into account that your sister being on the team would unsettle us, but I think he saw it more as a Quidditch tactic, rather than revenge.' Malfoy's brow furrows as he takes in his friend's words, but he doesn't reply. Potter's voice quietens and takes on an odd edge when he adds, 'after all, I'd say only acknowledging his brother to show hatred for him is revenge enough.'

At that, Scorpius turned his piercing blue-grey eyes on him sadly, 'I suppose you're right, in fact, I know you are, which makes it all the more stupid that I keep getting so angry about it all.' He rubs his forehead and eyes in distress. 'I guess we're both having sibling problems now,' his smile turns into a smirk at his weak attempt to lighten the mood a bit.

It's so weird seeing them like this – it's as though they're human or something! I also feel like a bit of a creeper right now and I probably look like one. Don't mind me, I'm just peering through a break in the stands at two young, good looking- wait, what? Psht, I mean… Okay, honestly, I have no excuse; have you seen them?! I can almost understand why horny little second and third years feel compelled to write "I heart (insert either of their names or both)" on the bathroom stalls. Not that I go there very often because it's kind of unsettling when Moaning Myrtle watches you pee… Back to the point, I say _almost _because Malfoy's a prat and Potter uses smirks to communicate, instead of actual words. Anyways, back to creeping:

'It would help if most of the Gryffindor house weren't arrogant twats,' Al Potter laughs.

Yes! "DOWN WITH THE BLOODY RED QUEE-" no, Heidi, no, Hogwarts, not Wonderland, you might want to keep those separated and save yourself some confusion. I should remember this seeing as the cats here don't float around with grins half the size of their faces. Instead, they wake you up by mauling you until you reach a weak stage of mental stability or, in my case, _weaker_.

They laugh in unison as Malfoy says, 'although you're right, it could be said that I'm a hypocrite for agreeing seeing as I'm also incredibly arrogant.' He shrugs and smirks, 'so much so that I just admitted it.'

I'm fairly positive that the little guy who sits at the control panel in their brains – I should so be a Ravenclaw – has managed to jam the "facial expressions dial" at "smirking". It's the most logical explanation for the constant, annoying habit. I'm torn from my unbelievably intelligent analysis by laughter. My eyes follow the sound to find the two smirk-eteers chortling and pushing each other around as they leave the pitch. Great, now I've missed the last bit of the conversation. I need to learn how to keep my whimsical theories under wraps during missions if I'm going to be a Spy Witch. If only I weren't so indisputably clever!

I check my watch. It's nearly breakfast time, my third favourite part of the day, just after lunch and dinner! I practically claw my way up the hill, back to the castle, with the promise of food being my only beloved drive.

…

I've managed to stick to today's agenda so far, apart from number three (pulling faces at class doors during my free period). I got around a few classes but then Peeves started chasing me around the corridors with water balloons. He made me RUN. I'm utterly disgusted.

Now I'm sitting in Defence Against the Dark Arts, still fairly soaked, and dreading the nearing challenge of number six on my agenda: Commence faze one of mission "Alaura": try to get partnered with Al Potter in Defence Against the Dark Arts and make remotely human conversation.

"Remotely human conversation"? What was I thinking?! I know I'm fabulous in every single way, but that's mostly down to my non-humanness. This shall prove to be a challenge.

As I try to casually pick out a bit of water balloon that had managed to go down my shirt (ending up receiving odd looks for rummaging around my cleavage), my favourite Professor, Professor Theodore (Teddy) Lupin, enters the classroom and rummages in his briefcase for something. Today, his hair glows a rather magnificent shade of orangey-red. He shuts his leather case over and brandishes a piece of parchment at us all. 'On this piece of parchment lay the names of the partners for this year's practical course. I did propose to the Headmaster that I let you pick your own partners, but he simply asked me if I had a death wish and walked away, so I took that as a maybe-no-maybe,' he says, tilting one hand side to side in an unsure gesture. 'So, I shall sort you into your pairs very soon, but first, what do you all think of my hair today?' he asks, suddenly serious, sweeping his hands through his hair and swinging his blazer over his shoulder like a model.

Yeah, did I mention that he's awesome? I know there are a lot of funny and laidback teachers out there, but it's extremely rare to find one that you actually still learn from, like Lupin. I love his name, Teddy Lupin. He's also really fit. What? Okay, so maybe he's my ultimate teacher crush, but I'm putting us on teacher-student-only basis right now, due to my fantastically raging romance with Adrian.

The class laughs and applauds, and one of the guys wolf whistles at the back. Girls twirl their hair and attempt to hide their blushes.

Professor Lupin nods in appreciation and sits down in his chair with one last hair flip. After quieting everyone down, he expresses his gratitude oh-so humbly, 'thank you, thank you, I clearly have you all well trained enough to recognise brilliance. Now, back to the school-y stuff that we all hate! Stand up when I call your name: Professor Lupin!-' he stands up and walks to the front of the class '-Tory Keenan, Nelly Robertson, Edward Nielson, Heidi Davis-Macmillan – oh, double barrel surname, aren't you fancy?' he muses in a rather camp voice, before continuing the list.

To emphasise his point, I try to flick my scarf behind my shoulder but, forgetting that it's wet, it swings around and gives me a damp slap to the face. If only I'd tried it when I was sitting down; it probably would have it Michaela, who sits behind me, in the face. Nevertheless, I shall always remember the day Professor Lupin called me fancy.

After squelching my way to the front of the class to stand with the others and waiting while the rest of the names were called, Lupin sent each of us in turn to sit with our assigned partner. Of course, I ended up with Michaela. She liked this just as much as I did, so she expressed that "Dino and I don't work well together" and was paired with Edward Nielson instead. Where did this land you? I hear you ask. Well, you know how I have terrible luck? Like when I nearly fell off of Hogwarts? Or that time when I thought it would be funny to try flying Laura's broom and ended up almost soaring directly into the common room fireplace? Don't even ask how I successfully got from the grass outside to the dungeons – it's me, I managed all too easily. I don't know if all of my classic incidents are actually down to bad luck or my severe lack of coordination, but the point is that I fail at life, yet now I'm being sent right where I need to be; in the seat next to Al Potter. What the Hufflepuff, drunk Merlin? Are you feeling guilty about getting Peeves to soak me and you're trying to make it up to me or are you taking pity on me? I would ask you to explain yourself, but my brain's too busy going, 'WHAT ARE THOSE WORD THINGS THAT COME OUT OF NORMAL PEOPLES' MOUTHS? HOW IS IT POSSIBLE FOR ME TO HAVE A SANE CONVERSATION?'

Once I sit down (my wet bum making a noise suspiciously similar to a fart, on the wood of the chair), Lupin claps and explains today's lesson. The up side to this: it gives me more time to think of what I can say to Laura's future boyfriend and my key to wondrous amounts of chocolate frogs. The down side: he's now told us to get started and I didn't hear a word of his instructions because I've been too busy debating whether 'sup my homie-P?' or 'howdy stranger' would be more socially acceptable. I am convinced I'm a Martian.

Potter turns his copy of 'Confronting the Faceless' to page 394, along with the rest of the class, while I burrow in my bag, trying to find my copy. I pull it out and flick it to the same page, finding that a reasonable chunk in the middle of it has been pecked through. When on wizard Earth did Ray do this? Not only is he a sassy diva, he must have a secret life as a ninja. Where a dementor's empty hood was supposed to be, a wolf head now resided from about one hundred pages later. That's one stylish demon dog. I bet he has the coolest parties where only the hottest bitches get in – heh, see what I did there? So it turns out I am actually very much like my dad…

I sense someone staring at me, guffawing at my textbook (I guffaw a lot. It's fun). I turn to see Potter smirking and cocking an eyebrow at me. Then I remember what my main aim for today is and how worked up I'd been about it. The amount of chocolate that's at stake with this bet is too great to mess around with. Pull yourself together Heidi and just talk to him! When I look back at him he looks at me expectantly as though he's asked me something. I decide to just dive into it blindly (never a good idea. NEVER LET ME DO THIS AGAIN): 'sup my stranger?'

'Oh I'm your stranger now am I?' he asks, his smirk deepening (if that's even freaking possible). 'I was just asking if you wanted to share my book seeing as yours has been, well, mauled and gauged out of?'

I'm not sure what I was so worried about; I always have been and always will be socially inept. So, of course what I have to say to his offer is, 'That'd be good. Thanks my homie howdy!' Seriously, why was I given the ability to speak? No good was ever going to come of it!

Potter actually laughed at that one. Unfortunately it was _at_ me. It will always be at me. '"homie howdy"? I must say I'm impressed, dino,' he – you know what's coming – _smirks_.

'Okay, Mr Smirky-holier-than-thou. I know I'm highly intelligent and everything, but I'm not particularly great with sarcasm, especially when it's used in compliments, because obviously, what with it being my brilliant self, I'm going to believe that it's genuine, so: thank you,' I smile sweetly, drawing a fedora hat onto my funky wolf-mentor. That sounds like someone who teaches you how to be a werewolf. I'm so adding that onto my list of aspiring jobs. Now I have to be a spy witch, a party unicorn, a witch detective and a wolf mentor. That sounds manageable enough.

'Who says I was being sarcastic?' he hints, starting to take notes on patronuses.

'Your smirk did,' I state bluntly.

'I always smirk,' he smirks.

'Henceforth, you are always sarcastic,' I explain.

'How would you know, you've never spoken to me before?' he recalls whilst reaching over and closing my textbook and replacing it with his still-intact copy.

I huff and open it again as my wolf-mentor, who I have now named MC Moon, is not a finished masterpiece yet. 'I simply presumed you were so because of your permanent smirk and those you are close with,' I justify, with a glance over at Malfoy who is pulling out all of the clichéd pick up lines on his blushing, giggling partner, switching between smirks and smoulders, proving my point.

Potter follows my gaze and shakes his head, his smirk, for once, faltering. 'Just because my friends act a certain way, it doesn't mean I do too. Have you ever seen me do that?' he asks incredulously, nodding his head at Scorpius, who winks at the girl and puts his arm around her, whilst pushing his blank parchment towards her. What a git.

'Not really, no. But you both smirk a lot and it gives me the impression that you are a sarcastic, arrogant twat,' I shrug. You're doing great Heidi! He's just itching to be your best friend!

Potter scoffs, 'wow, thanks, love you too.'

'See! Sarcasm!' I exclaim before realising seconds later that he was meaning to humour me.

His smirk etches back into place, emanating from his unfairly green eyes to my blue-green poo-water ones.

'That was uncalled for,' I huff. The effectiveness of my strop is lessened by my proud beam at my finished wolf-mentor representation, MC Moon.

'Aw, are you upset that I don't love you? I really am flattered, but I think we should get started on the practical work soon, so you should probably finish the notes,' he smiles bitter sweetly. Then he takes a glance at my blank parchment. 'You haven't even started? Is this what the whole year's going to be like?' he whines.

'Pretty much. Because I'm so intelligent it doesn't take long for me to do work, so I can fit in other activities beforehand, such as this,' I say, pushing pretend glasses up my nose and gesturing my wolf-mentor who is holding a record in one bony hand and a saxophone in the other. 'Meet MC Moon,' I introduce. 'MC Moon, this is Potter. What did you say? "He's a twat"? You are so right, my main wolf-man!' I hi-five the textbook drawing. When I look back at Potter, he gives me a flamboyant "really?" look. 'Are you getting sassy with me, Potter?' I demand, getting my Z formation clicks and "hell naws" ready.

'What are you going to do about it, Davis?' he says, taking my textbook and holding it out of my reach.

'Gurl, are you for real?! You did NOT just take MC Moon!' I exclaim, clicking in his face and trying to grab my book back.

'Damn straight, I did. Ah! Get your wet hair out of my face!' he yells as I try to reach past him for my book.

Thankfully everyone else is mucking about doing practical so the room is noisy enough to prevent too many stares at me sassily grappling with Potter for a ruined textbook. Unfortunately Lupin notices. He strolls up behind Potter, takes the book from him and hands it to me. 'Miss Davis-Macmillan, classy ladies do not act in such a manner, please live up to your double barrel name. Mr Potter, you are a very bright man and I'm not shouting at you because you're family and I'm biased like that, but you should know not to snatch a woman's possessions,' he nods before promptly bobbing away, weaving in and out of the spread out students towards the back of the class, where smoke was starting to form. That'll be Tessa Finnigan then.

Before he disappears completely, Potter shouts, 'but it's okay to steal from guys?'

'Yeah, if he's James!' the _professor_ calls back.

Potter laughs a bit, but sobers up oddly quickly. He turns to the side again to see me smiling at him complacently. He notices my text-filled parchment, 'how did you finish so fast?'

I tap my finger on the side of my nose, 'that's confidential information, Potter.' (Want to know a secret? I swapped our sheets around.)

He just rolls his eyes and leaves his seat for the space at the front of the class.

I follow, my wet shoes squeaking on the floor as I scuff them along reluctantly. He hands me the textbook and I read out the first stage of the practical work: 'try to think of at least three moments in your life so far when you felt your happiest. In order to conjure a strong patronus these memories must be vivid and conflict deep emotion,' I read in a bored, monotone voice.

'I don't think your tone quite matches the task, I think you should read it again,' he crosses his arms.

I look at him with the same dull expression and reply in the same tone, 'this is me when I'm happy.'

He quirks a dark eyebrow and a tiny smile flashes across my features before it sets again. 'Well I've seen you happy and this most certainly isn't it,' he retorts matter-of-factly.

I bark a laugh, 'when? It couldn't have been at the Burrow seeing as whenever I'm there I'm being chased by manic children.'

He smirks, 'I don't know if you've noticed, Davis, but we kind of go to the same school, are in most of each other's classes and are in the same house. I have seen you happy at least once,' he looks up at the ceiling from the corner of his eye as he thinks, then adds, 'maybe twice.'

'Oh yeah? When?' I challenge him.

'On the first day of school when you discovered Hogwarts' mash potato,' he grins in victory.

A smile breaks across my face as I remember, 'oh yeah… That was a good day.' Just as he reaches over to take the book for the next stage I point out, 'you said "maybe twice".'

He sighs, 'what about the last party at the Burrow? Not the whole being chased by kids part, but when we had the fireworks. I dare say I actually saw you laugh.'

My smile fades and I look down, crossing my arms uncomfortably, 'just because someone laughs, it doesn't mean that their happy; they can still find something funny.'

Potter's brow furrows but he drops the subject. 'Can you think of any good memories?'

I clear my throat and look back up, 'ummm, there's always the day I got my owl? But I don't think that triggers any "deep emotions"…' I pause to think and then my face lights up, 'oh! What about the day I nearly married mash potato?! Oh wait, but then I ate him…' I trail off, my expression slacking in defeat again.

The bells ring for a second time, signalling the end of the double period. We head back to our desk and gather our things. As I start my way down the corridor, Potter hesitates at the door and calls to me, 'you really are_ insane_, aren't you?'

'Normal is boring, my homie howdy!' I call back, in all seriousness, before slugging away in my damp state, leaving wet footprints in my wake.

As I walk to charms I think back to my agenda, mentally preparing myself for replicating Professor Flitwick's moustache, I realise that I hadn't mentioned Laura once throughout that whole double period. Great going Heidi.


	7. Channelling Satan

My Sixth Year: Parkinson, Pressure & Mr Al Potter

Harry Potter: Next Generation Fan Fiction

**A/N: Sup you Awesome… ers? I'll work on that. Anyway, here is your long awaited chapter. Please review if you enjoy it, for it shall encourage me to update despite my ongoing exams! ;D Thank you for all of the support!**

**Chapter 7: Channelling Satan**

I've been tapping on the metal of the painted iron school gate for about ten minutes now, with the bright dings getting more irritating as they go on, and I decide to stop before I pop one of Laura's blood vessels, as she stands beside me visibly shaking. I let one more metallic ring break out, but she doesn't realise that this is my last and screams, 'MERLIN'S SAKE HEIDI, STOP-'

'Would you kindly calm yourself, Miss Pucey,' an authoritative voice reprimands from behind Laura, with obvious amusement creeping into his tone.

Laura jumps in realisation of the professor's close proximity. 'Sorry, Sir,' she apologises, clenching her jaw at me, whilst I childishly giggle and double tap the gate again.

'Can I please have your permission forms?' Professor Longbottom (Gryffindor Head of House and Herbology professor) asks formally. We hand him our envelopes (mine has a pretty purple seal on it, because I'm fancy). He saunters away and is joined by Professor Lupin who has been collecting the forms from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw students. Lupin's bright magenta hair bobs as he walks up the hill, hands and pockets and being generally awesome and admittedly fit. But, like I said before, Vector's my man.

Actually, you have a lot to catch up on, where have you been for the past three weeks? Do you not love me anymore? One of my favourite characters in the book I was reading this morning died – do you really want to do this to me? Do you not think I have cried and eaten my feelings enough for one day? NO, YOU CAN'T BREAK UP WITH ME. ESPECIALLY NOT LIKE THIS. THIS ISN'T OVER.

Anyway, I thought you might like to know that I went studying with Adrian on Thursday, just like Rose had suggested on the first day of classes, and he helped me catch up on the several weeks' worth of Arithmancy essays and papers that I hadn't bothered to attempt, never mind finish. Afterwards I was emotionally and mentally exhausted. Do you know how difficult it is to fan-witch and concentrate on complex equations at the same time? It's certainly not easy. Did you also know that you're supposed to stay quiet in the library? I've always wondered why the librarian hates me so much. I've realised that it's because I tend to enter the library wailing songs from musicals and demonstrating my best jazz-hands. We did talk a little bit though, for instance he cleared up the whole "is Professor Vector his mum or Gran?" thing. It turns out that she's his Gran and he stays with her in Hogsmeade when he's not at Hogwarts. He didn't say where his parents were and, although I wanted to due to my ridiculously nosy ways, I didn't enquire further about it because the subject was making him go all serious and I wanted him to smile; serious conversations are awkward and confusing, especially with a fit, nerdy Ravenclaw and his smile is adorable.

Also, seeing as I was kicked out of Astronomy and I had already dropped enough subjects for free periods, I was given two more free periods on Tuesdays and one on Thursdays to catch up with my other studies. But then I managed to infuriate my future grandmother-in-law, Professor Vector, to boiling point. I asked her if she used "_incendio_" on her eyebrows to singe them into such a thin shape. Yeah… She didn't like that, so for the next ten weeks I have detention instead of those three extra free periods – yay me. This involves me being put in an empty classroom, with any professor who happens to be available to supervise me, whilst I study the two subjects that I'm not as great at as the others, but I'm still pretty damn good at them what with me being a super genius and all, these two subjects being Defence Against the Dark Arts and Ancient Runes. I'm slightly disappointed that I no longer have extra free periods, but I don't particularly mind the new arrangement as most of the professors that are sent to keep watch on me end up falling asleep anyway. What really irritates me is the fact that Slughorn still keeps losing consciousness with his eyes wide open and that I haven't had Professor Lupin "supervise" me yet. Shut up, don't crush my dreams.

Another thing you should know before continuing with the tragically weird awesomeness which is my life is that mission Alaura is still failing, all due to my awkward non-humanness and terrible memory. It's not even as though he doesn't like her or anything, it's all down to me never getting round to mentioning her. It's rather pathetic – you have one job, Heidi! I don't know what's wrong with me, I really want the money for those chocolate frogs and to beat Keren (purely non-selfish reasons, clearly) but every Friday I walk into class with the determined "Ho, you, yes you with the face: you're gon' love this gurl, okay?" attitude, and then I don't know how to casually bring her up in conversation and I leave the class unfathomably confused. Right now they are very much still Al and Laura, acquainted fellow Quidditch players, rather than Alaura, the most awesome couple ever thanks to Heidi and her awesome ways.

So yeah, there are my recent failures. Speaking of which, the caretaker has just opened the gates and I am being hurled down the hill towards Hogsmeade amongst the overly eager students. I knew it was a bad idea to stand right at the gate. So here I am, being flung from person to person, rolling in between random bodies and obstacles, like I'm in the maddeningly unbeatable pinball machine at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Laura and Keren scramble down the hill after me and eventually bring me to a dizzying halt.

'Are you okay?' Keren asks while Laura helps me get to my feet (not an easy task).

'I think I broke my bum bone,' I grumble, rubbing my lower back and grimacing, whilst stumbling around my spinning surroundings. Also, "Bum bone"; don't mind me, just living up to my super genius status.

Laura and Keren don't react to the term as they know full well that I'm a master when it comes to made up words and phrases – I'm one of a kind. 'I'm sure that's not the case, Heids. If you'd broken your "bum bone",' Keren air quotes then places her hands in their default position on her hips, 'you wouldn't be standing right now.'

My face breaks into a beam, 'HALLELUJAH, IT'S MIRACLE!' I leap a clumsy twirl and throw my hands into the air. In other words, I have a seizure in midair and whack myself in the face with both arms.

A group of people, whom I can't identify due to the remaining dizziness, cheer and clap as they walk. I hear Malfoy drawl, 'nice one, Davis,' amidst the cluster of blurred applauders.

Being the gentle sweetheart we all know and love, I retorted with, 'shut it you peroxide prat!' That's right, I'm whipping out the science-y stuff! I pout and rub my stinging nose in a huff (I don't know if you've noticed but I like to have a strop at least once a day).

As my dizziness subsides, the clan of extraterrestrials, more commonly known as the male species, come clearer into view and I spot a head of short-ish wavy dark hair slightly above the rest of them. Without really thinking, because that would be all too difficult, I yell, 'hey, Laura, there's Al!'

My loud slur catches his attention and he turns around to give me a quizzical look, before flashing me his usual smirk and continuing with the march to Hogsmeade with his clan. Laura gives me an equally odd look and rolls her eyes.

Not really sure of how to get across what I'm trying to say, after all, asking her to casually marry Al right here right now is a bit of a stretch, I point frantically at the back of his distancing form, hitting myself in the face, yet again, in the process. I rub my nose again. I wonder why I always get nosebleeds.

My friends – you hear that? My _friends_ – laugh at my pain and Laura sighs, 'let's venture forth, your grace,' as she pulls me down the hill with Keren.

...

I waft one of my newly purchased chocolate frogs in Keren's face. 'Soon I shall be able to afford everyone single one of these little guys in Honeydukes,' I gloat as we fight against the rising winds to keep our scarves on and successfully open the door to The Three Broomsticks.

We push our way into the welcoming warmth of the pub and I, being the child of the three, lead the way, skipping, to find the table I want to sit at.

As I round the corner of the bar to locate our usual, secluded little table, I see that it's already occupied by none other than Rose and Adrian. I make a sudden, awkward, heavy hop as I stop myself from skipping and turn my aloof "swagger" on. I don't think it's very effective seeing as my hair is a windswept mane and my nose and cheeks are stingily pink – it's early October and it's already freezing, thanks Scotland.

'Hey, Heidi!' Rose smiles and waves me over. I saunter up to her, cringing at the dreaded question I know she's going to ask, 'have you done your bit of the potions essay? I was thinking we could go to the library tomorrow and piece our work together, seeing as you don't have any free periods on Monday.'

I stutter, my eyes flicking between Adrian – why must he be so beautiful – who's quirking an eyebrow at me suspiciously, and the ever so expectant Rose. 'Um, I've done some of it?' I offer.

She rolls her eyes and giggles, 'it's fine, Heidi, I was just trying to freak you out. I've not even done my part either. Do you want to write it together at the library tomorrow then?'

Again, I stutter. 'Eh, I don't know, I have a lot of stuff going on…' I mumble. Ha, me? "Stuff going on?" I'll just be eating and reading and throwing pillows at Ray and the various cats that try to disturb my professionally lazy vegetation by attacking me.

'The library?' Adrian interjects, 'I have a lot of stuff to catch up on, I'll come,' he nods complacently.

'You know what, all of that stuff that's going on can wait,' I blurt out as casually as possible (so not casually at all). I glance at Rose's smirk and hurriedly add, 'purely for the sake of education, obviously.' I look left and right shiftily.

'Of course,' Rose simpers. 'I doubt we'll take very long; we're pretty good at Potions, if I do say so myself.'

I wave my hand, 'oh, no, no. It's fine, we can take all the time we want. What's the point in rushing? Rushing causes mistakes.'

Rose snickers into her butterbeer, 'very true. Is two o'clock okay?'

'Two o'clock is great,' I reply quickly. 'See you then,' I nod at them both and Rose smirks in reply while Adrian smiles – gah, his cheekbones.

I turn away from them to find Keren and Laura grinning stupidly right behind me, holding our butterbeers. After jumping so that my stomach rises into my chest and emitting a beautiful screech of some description, I push past them, smiling with clenched teeth, 'why don't we go find a table.'

We sit at a small table in the back corner and clunk our butterbeers down. Immediately, Keren asks, 'what's happening at two o'clock? Another hot library date?' she kids.

'Well I wouldn't call it a date seeing as Rose is going to be there, that would be kind of weird, but yeah, I'm going to the library with them tomorrow for a little while,' I state bluntly then take a of sip my hot, creamy butterbeer. 'I bet you're thrilled by such gossip,' I add after giving myself a foamy moustache.

Keren shrugs and sits her glass down, 'Rose seems to be pretty on onboard with the idea of you going out with Adrian so she'll probably leave at some point to give you both some time alone.'

'She probably won't because we're doing a potions essay together. Even if she does it'll be to panic and mock me – everyone seems to love laughing at my failures,' I reason.

Laura chimes in, 'you wouldn't be you without your failures, Heidi; they're what make you the strange, sassy, loud person you are.'

I brush my hand through my hair and it gets caught in the tug-ridden mass. 'True, I'm fabulous, but my hair certainly isn't. Has anyone got a brush? I'm worried I'll look like I have a matted mess of dreadlocks and afro frizz by the time we reach the school again,' I whine, my eyes watering as I roughly comb through the knots.

'No but it looks fine now,' Keren dismisses, taking another gulp of butterbeer.

Laura, only half listening, inspects the framed articles and pictures on the wall beside us. 'This is why you should wear your hair like mine,' she says, turning to face us and pointing to her neat ponytail and hairband.

I snicker, 'no thanks, Laura. It suits you but it wouldn't look right on me. Besides, we're going to force you to wear your hair down for the Halloween dance,' I wink at Keren and we hi-five across the table.

'You're going to wear a dress and everything!' Keren cackles.

'And you shall be escorted by Mr Right, whom I shall provide,' I add, my sly tone sinking Keren's beam as we have a stare off.

Laura moans, 'you guys still aren't doing this bet thing are you?'

Instead of answering her, Keren narrows her eyes at me and corrects, 'I think you'll find that she and Martin Thatcher will have a tremendous time.'

'Sure, Thatcher may go to the dance with her but he's too uptight to have a girlfriend younger than him – he'd see her as immature, even next to me. You don't know who I'm betting on, but you should get your galleons at the ready,' I threat wryly, amused with myself for even attempting intimidation.

The dark, pretty girl barks a laugh and has another drink of butterbeer. 'Care to make this even more interesting?' she challenges.

'How much more interesting?' I cheesily grin at the prospect of more chocolate frogs and the competitive tension between us evaporates.

'Another ten galleons of more interesting,' she says, her eyes brightening.

'You two aren't seriously betting on my nonexistent and unwanted love life for thirty galleons?' Laura splutters and little drops of butterbeer rain onto the table.

'It's a damn done deal!' I yell excitedly, shaking Keren's hand yet again.

'I better not be hearing of my little sister gambling,' Alex Zabini turns around from the table behind me to glower jokingly at his sister.

'Your little sister, by six minutes, can handle herself, brother. She knows what she's doing,' Ker grins cheekily at me.

'But she doesn't know what I'm doing,' I return the favour.

Alex laughs, 'you better watch yourself, sis, she sounds dangerous.'

Before I can enthusiastically agree with him, Potter calls in our direction from the pub doors, 'Scorp, Alex – practise!'

The boys from the table stand and head to exit. Malfoy glances over his shoulder at Laura, 'you coming for extra Quidditch practise? We could do with experience in flying in high winds, incase it's like this on the day of the big match.'

She shrugs and smiles, gathering her things, 'yeah, sure.'

Keren looks at me with a strange glint in her eye. 'We'll head up the road with you,' she suggests, almost slyly, without conferring with me – that is not how we do team work in the Spy Witch field, such a rooky mistake Agent Curlz.

I keep a close eye on her as we exit The Three Broomsticks, closely flanking the Quidditch players. What's she up to?

Throughout the whole strenuous walk, Keren's smirk didn't falter once and she kept giggling at me, looking between the Slytherin team and me. We're now sitting in the stands at the Quidditch Pitch, watching the team practise in the currently calmer wind.

As Keren's laugh tinkles next to me for the umpteenth time, I whirl round to face her with my eyes narrowed suspiciously. 'What's with the giggling? For the past twenty minutes you've been smirking almost as much as Potter and Malfoy-' I start, accusingly.

'Oh, so you did notice? I thought you were too busy eyeing your progress,' she grins, her black curly tresses flicking in the wind and licking at her sparkly pink bow like flames of dark, menacing fire.

I follow her mischievous gaze to see Laura hovering in the unsteady air, her ponytail having a good old rave, talking to Malfoy and Potter and firmly beating away the occasional bludger that hurtles their way. Huh, I guess if I put my mind to it Alaura could work. Then, I realise that's exactly what Keren's referring to. Not wanting to give my game away for definite, I play dumb. 'My "progress"?' I repeat, confusion contorting my expression and raising my voice.

'You know what, or rather _who_, I'm talking about,' she smiles coyly, her eyes locking with mine.

Okay, so maybe I overdid it. Yes, I know I'm a Spy Witch and should be good at these things, and, usually, I am, but we've reached that time of the day when I can't function due to hunger, even though I've eaten recently and dinner is close approaching. I want food but then again I don't. It's incredibly confusing and emotionally conflicting, it may as well be a mental disability or illness. I should start a charity for it. That, I shall work on later. For now, I'll just have to battle on with seven chocolate frogs and a cauldron cake. Please, don't feel sorry for me, just send rescue as soon as possible.

My eyes water up as the fact that I only have a single digit number of snacks left hits home. I guess that Keren has put it down to the sudden cold blast of wind rather than a food related emotional breakdown, seeing as she still has that stupid knowing look on her face instead of a worried one. I take a deep breath to compose myself and finally get around to responding, lamely, might I add, to her claim, 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'Yes you do, Heidi. I'm talking about me knowing exactly who you're betting on and how he's with her right now,' she nods over to the group of hovering figures, their green robes billowing.

Oh she's serious; she called me Heidi instead of Heids. I look back over at the Quidditch team to find no truth in her words, for Scorpius is the one talking to Laura, rather than Potter, who is instead in a pushing contest with Alex and seems to find it hilarious. Then, the idiot loses his balance.

I just want to make it clear that I do NOT care for Potter by any means, but when it comes to someone falling through the air, towards the very, most definitely, solid ground, I am going to be just a tiny bit anxious.

I jump from the bench and sprint down the stairs and across the pitch. As Potter nears the ground, enveloped, out of sight, in his robes, I do the only thing that could possibly get me to him in time. As my foot slams to the hard pressed grass for one last leap, I throw my feet into the air, and straighten my body on its side. As I hit the ground, I cry, 'MEGA SAUSAGE ROLL ENGAGE!'

You know how it hurts like a female wolf when you get poked in the boob? I'm waiting for someone to flat out smack down onto me from approximately fifty feet in the air. HOW DOES ONE, BOTH MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY, PREPARE ONESELF FOR SUCH IMMINENT, EXCRUCIATING OUCHYNESS? Oh yeah, you don't swoop to the rescue of some idiotic arsehole - dammit Heidi!

Potter's robes push the wind down on me and blast my hair out of my face as I prepare myself for inevitable pain, arms held out. I grimace, expecting crater-forming impact. I squeeze my eyes shut as green engulfs me. I'm greeted with a light brush of fabric and the blindness of dark. Better still, I'm greeted with cackles, carried in the wind beyond the robes that are shielding me. It's not just "ha-ha, that's funny" laughter. They are WAILING. Obviously, because it's me, I don't notice this at first, so when Potter lifts his robes from me, I'm still screaming, 'NOT THE BOOBS, MIND THE TITS, NOT THE BOOBS, LUCIFER!' and other intelligent, completely non-embarrassing things.

He has pranked me. That puff of air I had thought to be his robes was, in fact, him shifting onto his broom and _swooshing _away in the knick of time.

Being the stupid git that he is, Potter chooses this of all times to give me his best smirk yet. My eyes narrow menacingly as he holds a hand out for me and comments, 'I can assure you that I meant to cause no harm to your tits, but I'm flattered that you'd risk their well being for me, Heidi-kins.'

I feel heat rush to my cheeks and my facial nerves twitch. People begin to notice that my dinosaur self is close to erupting from its prehistoric roots and their laughter dies down and they hastily fall back.

Potter's pompous pride fades and he backs away slowly and carefully. However, it returns when I abruptly sober up and politely call to Keren, 'We'll continue our thrilling conversation at dinner.'

Thinking his friend is off the hook, Malfoy comes over again and hi-fives Potter. Alex stands by them, grinning, while Keren and Laura stay hidden in fear. They know me so well.

I turn back to Potter and give him a cutesy smile before vehemently screaming and charging after the prat in the wildest and most terrifying way imaginable, leaving my discarded scarf and coat behind me. Not even mash potato can save him now.

I'm unsure of what to put in today's diary entry, so I'm keeping it simple:

'_Dear__ Mature Journal,_

_Today, I channelled Satan.'_


	8. You're a Poo?

My Sixth Year: Parkinson, Pressure & Mr Al Potter

Harry Potter: Next Generation Fan Fiction

**A/N: Why hello there. Here's another update for your sexy faces. It's shorter than usual but it came to a natural ending that I didn't want to pass and I've dove straight into writing the next so I shan't leave you waiting long.**

**Review? ;)**

**P.S. Best. Chapter. Title. Ever.**

**Chapter 8: "You're a Poo?"**

Guess who I have for detention, or "supervised study", today? "Professor Lupin"? If only. Would you like a clue? Okay, so, who's pompous and bitter all over, with a stupid hat, massive earrings and a glorious hatred for me on top? You need more? I shall do my thing.

'How are you on this fine day?' I sing brightly to the point of the hat sitting on her tiny, bowed head.

'As much as I appreciate your polite intentions, Miss Davis-Macmillan-' oh she did _not_ just full name me '-this class is a form of punishment in which you must be silent and get on with your work,' my number one fan responds in a dull manner.

Words cannot describe how much I want to knock that hat off her head – not just because it looks stupid, like a cross between a highway woman's hat and a witch's hat (choose one, don't be greedy! Only I can have various occupations because I'm special in every single way, particularly socially and in my lack of coordination), but because it's funny to see her face tremble and verge on purple. Don't even say I'm not a nice person.

'Oh, but how could this be a punishment when I have you to supervise me, Professor,' I bat my eyelashes and she finally looks up, her dark eyes glinting with bitter amusement and her dangly black earrings swinging. I swear she uses those earrings as freaking telescopes. I know I just gave her identity away, but it was worth it. I suppose Keren would say I "owned" her, though I don't understand how insulting someone makes them your property.

Professor Sinistra clasps her hands on the desk in front of her and leans forward, her every word clear and crisp in, what I'm guessing she passes off as, a menacing tone, 'I don't want to be here anymore than you do, so would you kindly do as your told and make this a painless process for once?'

Oh snap. I decide not to pull out my Z formations on her just yet and give her a polite smile, 'why of course, Professor, why didn't you ask?'

Her brow furrows, making it look like all of the loose skin on her face has bundled up between her eyebrows, nearly concealing her eyes. She looks like a constipated vulture (don't ask me how I know what one of those looks like). It's both freakishly scary and funny and I don't know if I want to laugh or cry; help. Not wanting to look at it any longer for fear of bursting into tears and running to my mum, i.e. clinging onto the leg of a very unenthused Laura and wailing until everyone has a headache, I look back down at my doodle scribbled parchment and continue with the shading on MC Moon's saxophone.

I'd decided to use today's last torture period to focus on the work I've been copying from Potter for a few weeks, because, apparently, I "won't learn anything that way" according to the smirk-azoid himself. But now that I'm in the dusty classroom with the work out in front of me, I think I'd rather annoy Professor Sinistra and give MC Moon some DJ decks to spin and, perhaps, a fez. Fezzes are cool.

Speaking of Potter, guess what mission is still failing miserably? I completely understand if you want to smack me over the head and shout, 'GET YO SHIT TOGETHER WOMAN!' Y'know, I've never understood that saying – why would I want to collect my faeces together? That's just slightly worse than stamp collecting.

Anyway, odd excrement-related sayings aside, I'm an idiot. All I have to do is ask if he likes anyone or just start talking to him about Quidditch and ease Laura into the conversation. That doesn't sound too difficult, right? Why am I struggling so much with it then? Especially when I'm known for my overconfidence; it's not like anything daft that I say, which is basically every word I ever have or ever will utter, will embarrass me. You know what, I'm the freaking rabid dinosaur, I can do this. Plus, I don't think he'll be mocking me any time soon, unless he wants my buddy, Satan, to take over and chase him around the Quidditch pitch again, which, by the way, he then gave me five chocolate frogs for, to get me to stop. It worked. I am not weak. I'll have you know that I have the willpower of steel… Until food comes into play, in that case I shall get back to you.

Okay, so last class tomorrow I'm going to plonk my arse on that creaky chair next to him and determinedly bring up the November Quidditch game. Oh, but now that I've mentally noted that so aggressively I'll probably end up yelling at him, 'ARE YOU READY FOR THE GAME? YEAH, LAURA'S HOT AND STUFF. DAMN, DAT PONYTAIL.' I would ask you if you think I'm joking, but you probably know by now that that sounds precisely like something I would do.

Speaking of how I do unexplainably stupid things, I've started writing out my thoughts instead of the textbook passage, so now my notes look like, '_dementors are similar to boggarts in the sense that they can be defeated by means of DAMN DAT PONYTAIL_.' Accurate. At dinner I'm going to break the news to Laura: 'hey, you can't be a professional Quidditch Beater anymore because MC Moon needs you to be the bouncer at his parties to ward off unwanted guests by flipping your hair in their faces.' I'm sure she'll accept that it's her destiny. Her devil cat can assist her.

'What on Earth has this got to do with your work, Miss Davis-Macmillan?' Professor Sinistra reprimands from behind me, staring crossly at the new drawing accompanying my lazy notes.

I smile at her and answer innocently, 'I'm just trying to think of new, more creative ways of defeating dementors. It just so happens that this is a representation of my first theory. How blessed you are to be the first witness of my work.' I brandish in front of her my drawing of Lucifer in a tutu, sitting on a dementor's hooded face. I can't help but grin when she starts to tremble and turn an unhealthy shade of burgundy, all the way across her face, up to her scalp. I love this part!

'Excuse me, Professor Sinistra, but would you mind keeping an eye on another student?' Professor Lupin calls hesitantly from the door at the front of the empty (other than Professor Purple and myself) classroom. The handsome metamorphmagus pulls the student in question into view. Of course this student would be Potter, to whom I was needing to talk – funny how these things work out. The Astronomy professor's rage softens at notice of him.

'Why of course, Theodore,' she smiles and Lupin winces at the use of his full forename. Before he can cut in and show his distaste, however, she goes on to ask, 'seeing as you're the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, I was wondering if you would give me your views on Miss Davis-Macmillan's work for your class.' She clip-clops over to him and hands him my beautiful artwork.

Professor Lupin smiles and gives me a thumbs up. 'Very inventive, Miss double-barrel,' he praises and hands the drawing to Potter. Giving a fleeting nod to Professor Sinistra, he hurries out the door before she can say or do anything to match her livid, purple face. She claws my picture from an only mildly concerned Potter and scrunches it up before binning it.

I would be upset about my beautiful drawing, but I'm too busy feeling like an animal watcher with my gaze following Potter as he is ordered to sit at the other side of the room.

Something you probably haven't had the chance to notice, due to my inept social abilities and clumsiness, is that I actually am quite smart, as arrogant as it sounds, and not only in the fields of my studies, but also in the judging of character. An overly English, airy voice resounds in my head, '_although it can still be identified by its unruly hair and unfairly pretty eyes, it appears that the Potter creature has lost most of the tell-tale signs of its kind. This specific species is known for its smirking, arrogant aloofness and sarcasm, yet the creature in front of me seems to be distracted and actually using its brain. It looks like it's taking a lot of effort to do so. I feel like I should put it out of its misery_.'

As the other, more wrinkly and purple, creature nests in place at the front desk and begins marking essays again, I write a note and fashion it into a delicate little aeroplane, which I gently throw, close to the floor, behind my row of desks, towards the Potter creature. His head turns to the sound of my note brushing the floor and he picks it up, appearing to be too distracted to be curious of my antics.

I've come to know Potter to be a watcher, other than a sarcastic twat. He's quiet out of choice. He's a listener. That smirk he so proudly wears is because of his _knowing_. Every room he occupies is his own little data base; he'll sit, with friends or alone, and not take part in conversation for the sake of listening to others. I suppose he's an eavesdropper, but not in the gossiping sense. If he were to land himself in a tricky situation he would be able to strive on the information he'd have to hold against the other person; I can only begin to imagine how much blackmail material he's gathered. But he's not the blackmailing type. He's the witty, curious type. He likes soaking in his surroundings and smirking at the idiocies.

But, every once in a while Mr Potter comes across a snag in his system – a problem that nags at more than his curiosity. Every once in a while Mr Potter finds a problem that involves him. Imagine that; the chameleon being forced out of hiding. Every now and then the enigma to others with everything sorted in his own mind finds an error and has to make himself known. Mr Potter is a conundrum to himself. Impossible Potter.

Why have I decided to bound into a deep analysis of Mr Mysterious? Well as the surroundings soaker, the most curious of the curious and the Overlord of smirks, reads my note, his expression changes from deep calculation to suspicion and _worry_.

Dear Mr Potter has found an error.

Confusion furrows his elegant brow and his sharp jaw clenches as he wrings a hand through his dark hair. He eyes Professor Sinistra cautiously as he pulls out some work from his bag and carefully writes his reply underneath my message.

After he sends it over to me, I retrieve and read it. It's my turn to be the smirk-er.

"'_Boy troubles, Potter? How strange your people are. Yet, it must be stranger still to be confused by one of your own kind, especially your own brother.'_

'_I always knew you were odd, Davis, but isn't stalking me pushing even your boundaries? Or, let me guess, you're "psychic"?'_"

I repeat his actions in turn, letting my knowing grin shine out across the room as his smirk returns upon reading, but only for a second. I don't like his arrogant smirk, but when it's replaced with concern and worry, emotions that I would never expect Potter to make known, it is far too unnerving for my liking.

After a few more note passes, Potter's returning plane lands by my chair and I am caught slightly off guard by his reply:

"'_I don't stalk, I simply observe, like you I suppose but with less smirking. Besides, you sent your brother flying into a wall at the age of thirteen. That kind of spectacle is difficult to miss. Now, tell me, why does Mr Cool look so confused?'_

'_Why are you so interested? And that nickname better not stick.'_

'_You're not the only one with suspicions. I may not know James very well, but I know that he's supposed to be a cheeky chappy and ever since we arrived at Hogwarts he's been all dark and brooding – not even Fred has managed to make him crack a smile. He also threw punches at your best friend on the first day back. I know that Malfoy's a git, so is James for that matter, but I would at least wait until the second say back to floor him. He's been isolating himself, that's not common behaviour for an attention seeker. And if we're talking nicknames, don't worry, I have plenty more.'_

'_You can't only be acting on curiosity. Why are you so interested?'_"

I swear I am not a female wolf, but isn't it fun to rile people up? Though, even I can't say that that fun is my only drive here. Do I even have a motive? Upon questioning my own reasoning for such interest, I find myself admitting to an unconscious truth I'd never considered before. I write the five simple words that I'd never imagined myself gorging to Potter: _because, frankly, you are interesting_.

I find my own confused surprise reflected on Potter's face as he reads and replies, '_I see. You know, you're an odd character, not completely unlike me, as much as it pains me to compare myself to you_.'

With that more characteristic comment, I'm snapped out of my self-questioning, to answer with my own, '_How sweet. So what are we talking about here, a character study_?' I'm feeling so dazed, as though this isn't really happening. I'm sure you can imagine how difficult it is to read an enigma's motives when you are so unsure of your own. What even _is_ this conversation? Is this real life? Dear Merlin, it's that time of day again. Get everyone you know to send me prayers, for I am hungry. That's right, it's awkward hungry hour. Run and hide, people, run and hide.

Twenty minutes later, the bells ring to relieve the hundreds of students of class affairs to a couple of hours of free time for most and homework time for those who are genuinely devoted. I, however, am sitting in stunned confusion, gawking at Potter's lean figure exiting the classroom and the note covered parchment in front of me.

"'_How sweet. So what are we talking about here, a character study?'_

'_Of sorts, I suppose.'_

'_And what about James?'_

'_What do you propose?'_

'_You do love answering my questions with questions, don't you?'_

'_Contradictory, Miss Davis?'_

'_You're a poo? Anyway, are we meaning to say that we, of all people, are going to work together out of choice? I hope you do realise that something shall end up exploding and I wouldn't be surprised if it were one of our brains due to annoyance overload.'_

'_Love you too. That being said, we're both too curious now to drop the idea.'_

'_Fair point. Let the chaos ensue.'_

'_Chaos it is.'_

'_But this doesn't mean I like you, Smirky.'_

'_I'd never dream of it, Dino.'_"

What just happened?


	9. The Day of the Pregnant, Hormonal Dragon

My Sixth Year: Parkinson, Pressure & Mr Al Potter

Harry Potter: Next Generation Fan Fiction

**A/N: Wow, that was quick! Well, to update – it actually took quite a long time to write. I hope you're enjoying the Al-Heidi interacting and I assure you this chapter is far from short of the sort. I put a _lot_ of effort into this one (not that I don't with the others) and I really, really, tried, so pleeeeeaaaaasse review. I love seeing the views go up (they have been increasing quite a lot as of late) and I'm really grateful for you all reading, but I'd really like to know what you like/don't like/want to see more of etc. Your feedback means a lot.**

**Thanks! :3**

**Chapter 9: The Day of the Pregnant, Hormonal Dragon**

Hey there my unfortunate friends. I have a story to tell you.

There once lived (and still does live) a wizard and witch who made a pact of some sort (I'm still extremely confused about the whole ordeal) entailing that they discover what is wrong with the wizard's brother without causing one another to implode. And so, on a crappy rainy day (yesterday, Friday, at the end of the double period of D.A.D.A) the wizard initiated the first stage of their adventure.

'Because the Halloween dance is approaching, we have an extra Hogsmeade trip tomorrow. Well, when I say "we", I mean the rest of the student body, because you and I shan't be going,' he'd said, matter-of-factly, not sparing the poor witch any choice.

But this witch was (and still is) a badass so she pointedly replied, '_excuse_ _you_?'

However, the idiotic wizard paid no caution to her dangerous tone and sassy finger wagging. He foolishly grinned and fled the room after commanding, 'meet me at the top of the astronomy tower at eleven tomorrow morning.'

And so, young children, she presently stands on the death trap that is the astronomy tower, awaiting her not-so-prince-charming. What is the moral of the story? DON'T MAKE PACTS WITH PRATTY PRINCES AND GET YO ASS DOWN FROM THAT TOWER YO-SELF, YOU DON'T NEED NO MAN. Also, don't do drugs.

The End.

That may be the end of that endearing tale, but, trust me, it is not the end of my ranting. I AM UP DURING THE A.M. HOURS ON A SATURDAY FOR THAT GIT AND HE HASN'T SHOWN UP YET. I didn't even know that mornings _existed _at the weekend. I could be reading, eating my feelings and chasing Lucifer around with Laura's beater bat today, but no, I'm spending my time with Smirky, or at least I would be if he were _here_. You can probably tell I'm not in the best of moods. You see, I'm not supposed to get up before midday at the weekend otherwise I turn into a pregnant, hormonal dragon. Well, not literally, although that would be very impressive; I could bounce up to people yelling, 'CHECK OUT MY SCALY BABY BUMP,' without it being weird… Don't ask.

I stand close to the tower stairs, trying my best to shield myself from the high winds that carry vast swarms of pelting rain. Scotland, why must you be such a temperamental bitch? The winds are whipping the rain around like ricocheting bullets and even with my hooded jumper pulled close around me and in sheltered part of the tower, there's no escape from Scotland's fire. We get it, you want independence, but that doesn't mean you have to be keep whining about it and make all of your people suffer! I think someone should give Scotland a hug, personally. She's clearly feeling down right now, she just needs a friend. You know what I need? To kick Potter's balls across the Quidditch Pitch, through the middle hoop. SCORE. If he values his genitals he will show up now and hail to my awesomeness before it's too late. That's right, I'm not even at breaking point yet; THIS ME JUST STARTING.

Before I can scream aloud about every single annoyance and demand that Thor lightning-s this schnitzel up, I spot an owl fighting its way through the battlefield of wind and rain. It's a white barn owl, elegant and swift, or at least it would be if it weren't flailing around in Scotland's geographical hormones. After finding its way under the minimal release of the tower roof, it manages to land with its usual graceful demeanour. Standing tall and proud, it sticks it leg out, waiting patiently for me to reach for the note securely strapped to it.

'_Meet me on the seventh floor, by the painting of the fat lady that won't shut up. Sorry, the weather's not to my liking,_

_Smirky__._'

Before I even see the precise handwriting in emerald green ink, never mind before I read the note itself, I know exactly who it's is from. Who else would have a pompous, fancy owl? The owl swoops into flight and is swept away in the strong current of wind, but yet it doesn't lose its beauty. I find it hard to believe that _that _owl is the same breed as _Ray_. Ray is sassy, but this bird is classy. I think they represent their owners extremely well, actually. But now it's time to storm back down the slippery, rain soaked tower stairs, without injuring myself too severely, because apparently Potter doesn't want to come up here and get his hair wet. Who's a dead man? You know the answer and soon his groin is going to know it tenfold.

…

'MERLIN! Calm down woman!' Potter yells with his precious face squished against the red carpet running along the corridor.

'CALM DOWN?!' I vehemently scream with him pinned under my foot. I pull his hood, lifting his head from the floor, whilst prodding my wand at his neck. 'I GOT UP AND OUT OF BED TO TAKE THE STRENUOUS TREK UP THE MANY, MANY STAIRS OF THE ASTRONOMY TOWER, TO THEN WAIT THERE FOR YOU FOR _ONE HOUR _IN THE RAIN. _THEN_, I GET A MESSAGE FROM YOU SUMMONING ME TO TREK ALL THE WAY BACK DOWN HERE TO FIND OUT THAT YOU SLEPT IN AND COULDN'T BE BOTHERED COMING UP TO MEET ME. ALBUS SEVERUS STUPID-NAME POTTER, I WILL _NOT_ CALM DOWN!'

As the end of my wand turns aglow, a hex at the tip of my tongue, he shouts, 'I'M SORRY! I'm sorry!'

There are two things I'd expect me to do at this stage: either demand for food in acceptance of his apology or hex him anyway. But I do neither, for the portrait on our right, a fat lady whom I should probably mention has been wailing tone-deaf Latin opera this whole time, begins to swing open. Giving the git a quick kick to the side, him grunting a curse in the process, I roll him behind a tapestry and I shuffle behind it also.

The portrait reveals a circular hole, out of which Fred Weasley II and Joanna Lee Jordan emerge.

'What do you mean, "you haven't seen him"?' Joanna demands, looking rather distressed. 'You're his best friend, you guys are never apart! Something is wrong!'

Fred, clearly more irritated than anything, yells, 'that was true a few weeks ago, but now it's as though I don't even know him, in fact, he doesn't know me – he doesn't even look at me anymore! Don't you think I know that something's wrong? Do you not think that I've tried to talk to him about it?' His voice catches and he clears his throat, 'look, I'm sorry Joanna, but if James wants to be this way, we're just going to have to let him and hope that it's a phase. Besides, I'm sure there are loads of other guys planning to ask you to the dance.' He stands, warily taking in her watery eyes and open mouth before swallowing, grimacing and walking away, towards the stairs.

Joanna gazes after him, upset and confused. She chokes a sob and hurries back through the portrait, probably towards a consoling Molly.

The portrait closes to the sight of the Fat Lady flirtatiously giggling whilst some old guy in a ruff pours her a goblet of wine. I think I'll pass spying on this couples' affairs thank you very much, but Joanna and James, on the other hand, just got really interesting. I wriggle free from behind the tapestry while Potter kicks his way out, coughing from the rising dust.

I jump around, clapping and grinning like the idiot that I am. 'Yes! Finally, I have uncovered a love triangle!' I squeal, punching a still-spluttering Potter on the shoulder and skipping down the corridor in pursuit of Fred, leaving the defeated, dazed Slytherin to stagger behind me in his own time.

'Does this mean I'm off the hook? After all, I did "summon" you here,' he calls lazily in my wake.

Still skipping, t-shirt soaked through and wet hair sticking to my face, I shout back brightly, 'not a chance! And that jab at my previous word choice was unnecessary – I just so happened to be reading some of my Thor comics last night and he's all high and mighty like that. We should all strive to be more like Thor, he's awesome,' I pant from the unfamiliar exercise, rambling on the way I do. 'Anyway, to get off the hook you're going to need way more flattery and chocolate! Lots and lots of chocolate!'

Potter catches up with me, rubbing his side and exaggerating the pain. He's quick in stride to stay beside me, but he isn't wheezing like I am because he's used to actually walking places and sometimes he even, I dread to imagine, runs. 'The chocolate should be easy enough, but the flattery shall prove to be a challenge, Dino,' he sighs, his smirk back in place as I slow down and start crawling along the floor instead, close to having fifty billion heart attacks.

'Well you owe me, Captain Douche Nozzle, so that shall have to be "challenge accepted",' I correct, having now taken to what I can only describe as "caterpillar-ing" across the floor; I lie down flat, then pull my knees in with my bum in the air, and flatten back out again. And then I repeat and just keep looking fabulous. And then I get carpet burn on my cheek and it's not so much fun anymore.

'"Captain Douche Nozzle"? If that's another nickname, I'm not really feeling it,' he comments, trying not to laugh as I lie a little way behind him, bum in the air, rubbing my red, burned face with a pouted lip.

I throw my hands up in defeat and decide, 'Smirky it is then.' I scoot over to the tapestry along the wall again, wiggling on my now-floored derriere, and I grab onto it, using it to hoist myself to my feet. Yes, I am at that stage of laziness. Furthermore, I cling onto it as I walk, not daring to trust myself to do so without any support.

He smirks, 'I like Smirky.'

I stumble back over to him with my breathing now almost healthy. We continue walking in Fred's direction, which, as we find out when we see his red jacket distancing in the rain, through the Entrance Hall doors, is Hogsmeade. So I do get my Hogsmeade trip, but it's with Potter, chasing after a Weasley, in the Scotland's not-particularly-bonnie weather.

We stand at the doors hesitantly, Potter lifting his hood up and sorting his hair in preparation. I roll my eyes and tug it down, and then push him into the onslaught of rain and wind. I cackle madly and chase after him as he tries to run away and pull his hood back up again in protection. 'You are such a girl!' I yell at him between laughs, over the wailing wind and slashing rain, while he whines about his "ruined hair".

He catches sight of my already soaked jumper, jeans and hair; my hood slumped against my back, forgotten, while the rain practically washes my face.

I push his hood back again and slap his hand like a reprimanding mother when he tries to fix it. 'You owe me, sunshine!' I remind him in a sing-song manner.

'I don't think that nickname's suitable right now, Dino,' he points out as we start walking hurriedly after the blurred red jacket further down the path.

'Whatever, Smirky. Now, let's get started on that flattery!' I prompt him whilst we kick through puddles, splashing water at each other.

He waits for me to walk ahead a little and then runs and jumps into the puddle short of a pond right in front of me. A tsunami gushes over me from my stomach to my feet. 'How about you make a great raisin?!' he smirks at my shrivelling finger tips. I may as well have had a bath.

'Hmmm, that's not really screaming "I'm sorry, you're the best, the most awesome and the ruler of all brilliance" to me, or as you would say "I'm not feeling it",' I air quote, scooping up some rain from the puddle and pouring it down his back, at which he wriggles and emits a high-pitched, choked squeak/squeal that Moaning Myrtle would be proud of.

'_That_ was uncalled for!' he shrieks, flapping his arms around, trying to free his back of the running water. He couldn't look any more camp right now. This is brilliant. After realising that nothing can be done about it, he retaliates, pouring water on me and narrowing his eyes when I don't even flinch.

I give him a bored blink before threatening, 'I assure you it was most definitely called for, or would you like me to remind you how long I waited in this weather, alone, after climbing all of those stairs, while you slept, cosy and content?'

He gingerly points at me, 'you just did.'

I raise my eyebrows and ring out my rat-tailed hair. 'I'll put it this way then, would you like me to pin you on the ground again, this time in a rather significant puddle?' I challenge.

'You wouldn't-' he starts, but then scurries away, yelling, 'no, no, no, no, no, no!' when I pretend to lunge at him.

'You are, by far, more of a girl than I am,' I taunt, splashing after him. We keep our pace quickened to make up for the water fight break, not wanting to lose sight of Weasley.

'Well I'm sorry I'd rather not be soaked to the skin! Are you honestly saying that you are not the slightest bit uncomfortable right now?' he questions, gesturing to my dripping form.

I take a deep breath. I can't wait to see his reaction to this one. 'I'm going to put this simply for your limited intellect, Smirky: I HAVE FREAKING NIAGRA FALLS GOING ON DOWN HERE,' I gesture to my crotch area. 'I AM BLEEDING OUT MY INSIDES,' cue me making flowing representative gestures, 'THERE IS NO WAY I AM EVER GOING TO BE COMFORTABLE RIGHT NOW, WHICH IS EXACTLY WHY I'M JUST ACCEPTING IT AND PRECISELY WHY YOU ARE BUYING ME CHOCOLATE.'

Cheeks tinted red. Eyes threatening to pop out of their sockets. That went well.

I smile briskly and kick rain at him once more before walking on, singing, 'shall we Potter? Our ginger consultant awaits!'

As we pass under the school gate, into Hogsmeade, Potter clears his throat and meekly croaks, 'in my defence, I don't have that issue so I can't be more of a girl than you.'

'If you did have that issue, Potter, that would be more than mildly worrying,' I highlight, as we head towards the door to The Three Broomsticks.

'Oh, don't worry, I got that checked out months ago,' he dismisses, shoving his hands in his pockets to restrain himself from lifting his hood up, even at this pointless stage.

I snort, 'that's always good.' I reach out to push the door open, but he pulls me back by my hood.

'Hold on a moment, Dino. Fred knows James better than anyone,' he pauses, allowing a shadow of some unidentified emotion to pass over him before continuing as though it never happened, 'even if he doesn't know what's wrong with him, he'll be able to tell us how he's been behaving.'

'Yes, I know, Captain Kirk. I was the one who sent us skipping into the rain after him,' I retort.

He rolls his eyes, 'you don't say? My point is that anything he can tell us will be valuable, so we can't afford to lose him to any of your-' he waves me up and down, trying to find the right word -'Davis-ness,' he finishes.

I pout indignantly. 'But people love my Davis-ness!' I defend, 'it's endearing!'

A group of first years (I can't believe they were allowed out just because of the dance. I don't trust them with their smallness and constant smiling) squeal past us and take the crumbling path towards the Shrieking Shack.

'I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with you there, Dino. You do remember why I call you that, right?' he rejoins, widening his eyes in emphasis of his disagreeing.

I strop, arms crossed, 'well if you're so adamant that I'm hopelessly Martian-like (which I am not denying) why don't you swoop on in there and ask how James-y, the brother you made hi-five a wall with his face, is doing?'

He clenches his jaw and the shadow returns, again, just for a moment. 'Fine! But, _please_, try to be relatively normal, comforting even; he seemed pretty upset back there,' he advises.

'Comforting?' I repeat with a crooked smile, unzipping my jumper to reveal my see-through t-shirt.

'Oh, Merlin, no, DAVIS!' Potter yells at the door closing behind me.

…

Twenty minutes later I saunter out of the pub, munching on chocolate and zipping my jumper back up.

Potter sits on a barrel by the door, with his eyes narrowed in deep thought, but once they flit over to me their glare is one of annoyance. 'Do I dare ask how it went, Madame Zip-me-up-zip-me-down?' he sneers, his tone carrying the heavy weight of sarcasm.

'Is it bad that I actually think that nickname has a good ring to it?' I tease, popping the last chocolate my ginger consultant gave me into my mouth.

His narrowed gaze, through his dripping locks of forward-swept, wavy hair, intensifies at my attempt at humour.

I scoff, 'you can drop this whole brooding bravado. I promise you we weren't gossiping about you, my sweet-'

'Get to the point, Davis,' he huffs, getting to his feet as we start walking back along the road, through the gates guarded by stone flying boars and up, towards the magnificent castle.

'You need not pull your pretty hair out, Potter, he told me all he knew and I didn't even need to push him for any of it, never mind flirt,' I pause, waiting for any response, but my pact pal looks blankly onwards. 'I told him I'd seen him storming off and asked him what was wrong, and when I didn't get an immediate reply, I asked him if it was James, mentioning how weird he's been lately. Ginger said your bro-slice has been growing more and more detached and now he only speaks to him when he has to. Also, Fred said he sometimes wakes up at night to find James' bed empty – he even sat up for a few hours one of these nights, waiting for him to return, but then he fell asleep and he was back again when he woke up. He says that whenever James wanders off it's usually to the library and that he has this notebook that he always carries around, but Fred could never get a look at it because he's so protective over it. Then I gave him a potato with a note on it and asked him to give it to Rose and to ask her to pass it to someone else, and he gave me chocolate. All in all, it was rather successful,' I conclude, staring up at Potter expectantly.

As my eyes bore into his conscience, he glances down at me and his ridged composure relaxes to reveal his usual smirk and aloof swagger. 'Okay, okay, I'm sorry. You did… not completely terribly,' he praises (sort of).

I nod with a disbelieving smile, accepting that this is the best I'll ever get.

While we walk in a thought filled silence, students pass us in both directions; the early risers, clothed in flimsy jumpers having left the castle when the weather was still reasonable, and the late comers in coats and scarves, some carrying toasted sandwiches and other remnants of lunch.

The rain has eased to a pitter-patter, in stark comparison with the heavy drumming of earlier, but it makes no difference to us walking sponges. I do slightly wish I'd thought to wear a coat, but that was never going to happen. That would have been far too sensible. Besides, I was in a hurry to get to the astronomy tower, seeing as I woke up five minutes before our said meeting time, so I never would have thought of such a thing – which reminds me: 'hey, why are we heading back to the castle? You owe me chocolate!' I point out, righteously.

Potter smirks again and a raindrop trickles from his hair, down the sharp plane of his cheek and into the dimple created by it. He produces five chocolate frogs from various pockets and holds them out for me to take. 'I got them while you were flirting with the "ginger consultant",' he explains, ignoring my glare at his mocking. 'Are we even?' He raises as the castle doors open to a blast of welcoming heat which goes on to hug around us as we enter. I've always loved how strangely cosy this place is for such a large, stone structure.

'Never,' I say through a chocolate-y grin.

'Never,' he repeats.

Our wet shoes squeak on the steps down to the Slytherin dungeons and the torches on the walls highlight the droplets on our faces.

I decide to voice a nagging thought (we all know I'm not one to keep quiet),'so were you planning on spending the day stalking your cousin in the rain, because I was under the impression that we were actually going to stalk your brother himself? That seems more okay to me for some reason – brother love is caring, but cousin love is creepy.'

His smirk cracks into a smile, which is kind of scary – not the smile itself, but the fact that it's Potter, or maybe it's just because we're talking about creepy cousin love. I'm going to go for a little bit of both?

'Considering that everyone who knows James best is in Gryffindor, I figured it'd be wisest to wait outside their common room and see if anyone of interest came out of it, even if that person happened to be James himself,' he clarifies as we approach the familiar stone wall behind which our common room resides. 'But,' he adds, 'I was originally planning to meet you at the astronomy tower because I knew it would wind you up to have to walk all the way up and back down again. I never meant to keep you waiting in the rain like that though, believe me.'

I nod, 'sort-of-apology and chocolate accepted.' I have to give him credit, he's better at planning things than I am; I still can't even bring myself to do something about this Alaura bet-

Oh crap. I've been with him for several hours and haven't brought her up at all. Why would I torture myself for nothing? Well, I suppose it wasn't too bad; I got to annoy the smirking sod, avoid the cats (I swear, they follow me around like Potter and Malfoy's little fans) and I got reasonable sums of chocolate out of it.

'Sneezing serpent,' Potter enunciates and the wall slides aside to reveal the passageway to the dull, green-lit common room. 'They're really running out of password ideas,' he idly comments.

'Go creative freedom, I say. As long as I get to use the words "potato" and "monocle" in them at some point, I'm down with it,' I express, glancing back pointedly and winking at the closing stone wall as a hint (because the wall totally gets to decide). A first year in the group behind us looks up at me quizzically as they think I was staring and winking at them like a creeper, but I turn back around again, deciding that telling them I was flirting with the wall wouldn't do me any favours either.

While he smirks away at my silly musings, I decide to try and develop the conversation to suit my aims. 'Do you not think it would be cool if the passwords were more personal, like variants of students' names? For instance, let's just say, hypothetically speaking, it could be Alaura or… Laubus?' Remind me not to speak around people.

He looks at me quizzically and notes, 'why are you crossing over my name with Laura's?'

'That was just an example,' I blurt out hurriedly. 'It could also be Laurtin or Marta, but they're stupid examples, stupid, probably because he's not even in our house!' I laugh nervously.

'Wow,' Potter sarcastically gasps, 'that is weird, even for you, Davis.'

I mentally slap myself. Next time I bring her up I'll choose a safer topic, such as Quidditch, which was exactly the one I was supposed to be working with considering that they're on the same freaking team – that kind of offers a little leverage, Heidi. 'Why, thank you, I try,' I smile my bitter-sweet, mocking smile. That's more like it.

'See you in D.A.D.A, last thing on Wednesday, Dino. It has been a pleasure to irritate you as always!' he drawls with a smirk, before sauntering over the sofa by the chess board, where Malfoy sits, looking bored as per usual, watching Alex Zabini play against Laura's older brother, Oscar Pucey.

'Indeed, Smirk-ster,' I call after him, sticking my tongue out.

I lazily scuff my way along the little stone corridor to my dormitory and open the door to find Keren sitting on her bed, surrounded by tissues and groggily yelling at Laura about Merlin knows what, while the blonde keeps trying to calmly interrupt her.

'How can you even say that?! Peeta shall forever be the one and only man for Katniss, no, stop it, stop! Peeniss forever!' Keren barks, then almost coughs her lungs up. Oh, love triangles in book series are the worst and best; they destroy relationships but, let's face it, no one's backing down when it comes to who Katniss should be with.

'I'm sorry, Ker, but that's just the way I feel. I DON'T LIKE PEENISS,' Laura reasons, clapping her hands with every syllable of that glorious final sentence.

Before Keren can say anything more, I interject, 'and that's perfectly okay. We must accept each other for our preferences, both book-related and sexual-'

'Thank you, Heidi, that will be all,' Laura sighs, rubbing her forehead. 'I was simply saying that Katniss is a strong independent woman who, as Heidi would put it-' she waves for me to fill in the blank.

'-Don't need no man.'

'Exactly,' Laura smiles whilst redoing her ponytail.

After a few seconds of foreign silence, in which Keren sits grumpily sniffling and blowing her nose, I add, 'but if she had to pick someone for her, she would choose Gale.'

Keren turns to her lividly. 'Tell me it isn't true,' she dares.

'I- I- But- HEIDI!' Laura shouts at me accusingly while I giggle over to my bed, avoiding the pillows Miss Pro-Peeniss pelts across the room.

'STOP BLOWING HOLES IN MY SHIP!' the fever-induced, clearly also hormonal, Keren, screams.

'OH HERE YOU GO, TALKING ABOUT BLOODY BOATS AGAIN! WHAT HAVE THEY GOT TO DO WITH ANYTHING?' Laura yells in retaliation, using her leather bat to swat away the pillows with her Beater precision.

A knock sounds from our door, just barely audible above the catty din of my roommates. I answer it, avoiding the flying duvets (I swear to Loki, if they throw the mattresses next…)

'Some ginger girl asked me to give this to the weird one?' the fourth or fifth year girl raises her statement in question, holding out the potato I'd asked Fred to pass on. As she peers at the chaos behind me, I know exactly what she's thinking, '_they're all freaking weird, but it has to be for the dinosaur_.'

''at'd bhe mhe, 'anks,' I reply with my mouth packed with an entire chocolate frog. I quickly grab the potato and fleetingly close the door, wiggling my fingers in a wave, 'bhye, bhye, chome a-hain!'

Oh sweet innocent child, what she must think of us. This is why I love being unearthly strange. I would say more on this subject but you should probably read my potato:

"'_Yeah, dancing and costumes and stuff.'_

'_Indisputably discreet as always, Heidi. Would you like to go to the Halloween dance with me?_

_Yours hopefully,_

_Adrian_.'"

This is so beautiful I want to cry. We're potato messaging! It's like a less classy but more delicious and generally superior version of sending love letters! Adrian, Adrian, Adrian, I accept. If he doesn't propose to me in big cake and ice cream letters, whilst wearing a monocle, I shall be thoroughly disappointed, but for now I'll have to settle with the dance. Seeing as this "shindig" is going to be significantly more important to me this year, meaning that I will want to look reasonably sane, perhaps even pretty, for once, I won't be able to dress up as Peeves and chase the ghost himself around with water balloons. But now is not the time to be focussing on the things I will be missing out on, for I am going to the dance with Adrian _I-Can't_ Vector.

I cradle the precious potato as I walk over to my bed, through the war zone in which the warriors are now actually quoting the books at one another whilst they wreck our room. I place the key to my happiness in my bedside drawer which I then lock with an actual, non-metaphorical key.

I curl up on my bed, emotionally and physically drained, welcoming the quick coming sleep, despite the bedding-throwing domestic going on around me. And of course my last musing before my mind turns heavy with unconsciousness is, '_I dread to think of what weird dreams I'll have falling asleep to so much yelling about Peeniss_.'


	10. Magical Raving Madness

My Sixth Year: Parkinson, Pressure & Mr Al Potter

Harry Potter: Next Generation Fan Fiction

**A/N: Hello people! So I have been writing the Halloween Dance for quite a while and had originally planned it to be one really long chapter, but now I have found a delightfully evil place to half it at so I have decided to make it two instalments of regular length :3 Mwahaha! I have been looking forward to writing this event since I started planning this story, months ago, and I have had far too much fun with it as to be expected XD Any references made throughout this chapter and the next, will be listed at the end of the next chapter. I am most of the way through the second half, and it should be up soon, but I'm sure you'll appreciate that I have been trying my best to get it done and that there is a lot to write (what with the two halves together coming to 7000 words so far :L ).**  
**Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter, pretty please let me know what you think because I love receiving reviews and it really helps me to keep up my pace and effort. Also, Thank you for the new follows and favourites etc. I'm glad you all like it!**  
**It's "shindig" time!**

**Chapter 10: Magical Raving Madness**

One cat struts with her arse hanging out, and another one. The next feline's bringing cleavage into play and then we have a sexy devil and a slutty vampire flanking her at the back as they head from one dorm to another, gathering makeup and hair supplies. You'd think, with all of the magical possibilities, that Halloween would be different at Hogwarts, but we still have those girls who use the holiday as an excuse to expose as much flesh as decently possible. I swear I saw a fifth year girl running around the corridor outside the girls dormitories in just her underwear and a t-shirt with Malfoy's face printed on it. I'm scarred for life. The only thoughts that are keeping me sane enough to compute is the hope that she could have been mid-getting-ready and the prospect of seeing Adrian soon; my buoy to keep me afloat amongst the drunk, half-naked bodies.

I get that some people like to show off what they can't on regular days, but I think there's a rather bold line to be drawn when you have fourteen year old girls twerking in skimpy cheer leader outfits, while, attractive prey, Professor Lupin runs for his life and poor little Professor Flitwick doesn't know where to look. I think that sort of dilemma is exactly why there never used to be Halloween dances at Hogwarts, but then Dominique Weasley was trusted as Head Girl a few years ago and managed to wiggle her way around the Professors on the matter. And then the school persisted to make terrible choices, such as making Potter and Alex Zabini prefects this year. What the flaming phoenix is that about? Why they've been given any leeway or power in the school, I'll never know.

At first professors attempted to control the dress choice for the dance – creating limits and minor rules – but they gave up eventually and now they end up getting deliriously drunk, cackling in a corner to wash away the stress of the rioting pupils. Last year Slughorn was bobbing around in a chicken suit, tapping his feet like an elderly jazz fan to the blaring wizard rock and got swept away by a mosh started by none other than Professor Lupin. I spouted pumpkin juice out my nose from laughing, whilst standing on a chair, and it proceeded to make a moat on the brim of Professor Sinistra's hat, who was standing right in front of me. It was amazing. But then I don't remember much else other than following a random first year around and wailing at him about how funny his bowl cut was, because, as it turns out, the pumpkin juice was spiked by Laura's brother.

It's been two weeks since you last joined me, but not much has happened. I studied with Adrian after classes each Thursday, in which we ended up talking about disco goblins the first time and muggle super heroes Vs wizards the second Thursday. I think Professor Binns found my goblin wars essay to be… interesting, so to speak, and we concluded that although magic deems superheroes pointless, they are still way more unbelievably awesome. In addition, I ordered him to go to the dance as a superhero of some form, as I'm pretty sure he would happily go in regular casual dress. Also, I managed to bring up Laura in a relatively normal conversation with Potter, but then after continuously mentioning her for half an hour he's decided that I fancy her. Other than that it's just been the usual; magic, witches, wizards, spells gone wrong, demonic cats, mash potato and then sorting out costumes for the dance this past week.

I'm currently sitting on the bench by the shared showers, back clammy with steam and hair dripping, leaning forward so to not rub my dry bra against the condensation-coated tiles. One girl from the dorm next-door stands by a mirror, drying her hair straight with a heating charm, while another showers in a cubicle, the gushing and trickling water creating a calming rhythm with my drumming fingers on the bench. The girl finishes her hair, slips her fox ears into place and clip-clops back through to her dorm, bushy tail swinging.

It's an hour until the dance starts. Most students are ready. The boys were ready ages ago and are in the common room sorting out the necessities of smuggling fire whiskey into the hall and planting it on innocent first years. Whereas, the girls started preening themselves at the same time, but are still at it now. Other than shower girl, the unheard-of superhero, I'm the last to even make an attempt at glamorising myself and there's still an hour to go. What more can they possibly do to themselves to take much longer than that? Clearly, a lot. Even Laura started an hour ago, albeit under Keren's unforgiving command. But here I am, sitting around in my underwear, staring at the plastic covered dress hanging across from me.

It sounds daft, it's just a dress, but there's something so unfathomably daunting about it that makes my stomach squirm. Perhaps it's pre-date nerves? Anxiety? Worms? It's probably best I avoid thinking about the latter, unless I fancy vomiting all over my freshly-showered self. I may as well be ill, seeing as my appearance is something I don't usually consider, especially on Halloween. I tend to go to these dances as something silly, like Peeves. Last year I even went as something scary (Professor Sinistra), which is what Halloween's actually meant for. That's why my mum thought I had been drugged when I owled her, asking for her to send me my cousin's bridesmaid dress.

I pad over to the white-cream silk garment gleaming in the light and free it from its plastic sheet. My shoulders shrug up to my face with a cringe. It's so… _pretty_. Perhaps that's what this unsettling aversion is; it's too pretty. I don't usually think about making the effort of trying to look nice. I actually try to embarrass myself, if anything. I'm happy with jeans, t-shirts and the occasional beanie hat when my hair is being especially stubborn. This dress – the silk, the layered underskirts, the prospect of having my legs on show, of wearing the little red high heels and having Keren apply my makeup and style my hair (I don't trust myself with a hairbrush never mind some pencil that goes in-about your eye) – repulses and even scares me a little. I'm not particularly self conscious, you, of course, are aware of my over confidence and flamboyance, but I'll feel so out of place in all of these girly torture contraptions. And yet, I still want to put myself through it. I'm curious as to what it's like to feel beautiful. I don't think I'm ugly, like I said, I'm confident with who I am and what I look like, but I've never felt elegant or glamorously beautiful.

Fed up with my own sulking, I take the dress out of the humid shower room and into the cool dorm, putting this all down to nervousness and anticipation. I dry off properly and unzip the dress before slipping it on and asking Keren to zip it back up. She shoves my hair in a towel turban first, so to not dampen the silk. She bustles back over to Laura to engulf her in a cloud of hairspray, whilst ordering me to sit by the mirrored dresser which is symmetrically adorned with bright lanterns and smothered in little compacts of various alien substances. Keren creates a tornado of glittery hairspray as she swirls the can around her own head, decorating her mane. She and Laura stand, fully ready, and go their separate ways – Laura to the bathroom, muttering, 'finally I get to pee, you inhumane maniac with tweezers,' and Keren over to me, giggling deviously at my helpless grimace.

An hour later, the terrorising process is complete and we head out of the common room, with a few other stragglers, as unlikely friends; Heidi the fifties pin-up girl, Keren the pixie and Laura the Ancient Roman. My skirts swish and tickle above my shaved knees as I just manage to walk in the two inch heels that may as well be sky scrapers to me. The dress has inch-thick straps joining onto the bodice, which stops at my waist to be tied by a broad silk ribbon in a bow at the back, before flaring out into the fifties skirt. My lips are cherry-red to match my shoes and my eyes are graced with a thin black flick of eye liner along my top lashes, which are curled with expertly applied mascara. My hair is in large, tight curls with a quiff at the front. It makes me want to cry that I know what all of this stuff is (I preferred calling eye liner "the panda eye stuff"), but I feel oddly bright. Keren and Laura seem to pick up on this, giving me worried looks when I start leading us in a conga towards the Great Hall.

As we head up the last stone steps from the dungeons, into the entrance hall, The Weird Sisters' song 'There's A Troll In My Bed' can be heard, bass vibrating through the walls and floor, along with the ruckus of whooping, laughter and loud conversation. I suppose these are the usual sounds you'd expect from a party, but once we round the corner, into the Great Hall, the sights are quite the opposite. An Ancient Egyptian whizzes past us on a doomed broom, with the bristles aflame from someone shoving a candle-filled pumpkin on it, whilst a goblin (the first year's height matching that of the actual creature) scurries past, vomiting slugs and spouting grass from their head. Hagrid, the Gamekeeper, thumps past, yodelling about flying goats with an equally intoxicated Professor Slughorn. You've been to parties like this before, right? Just me? I would have invited you, but- oh look, there's Adrian!

I weave through the dancing crowd towards the buffet table where he waits, gazing up at the floating pumpkins below the swirling purple sky of ceiling. In the centre of the mass of glowing orange faces, hovers the mother of all pumpkins – one of Hagrid's best – with a wicked cut out grin, flashing gold on and off and spitting fizzling fireworks, lighting up the darkness like a magical strobe light. Everyone's movements freeze robotically as the room quickly switches between gold, purple and darkness. Charmed bat cut-outs swoop up above, sometimes dropping down momentarily to spook unsuspecting bystanders.

I jump back quickly as Lily Potter and Roxanne and Lucy Weasley zoom by in front of me on roller skates, wearing wobbling deely-boppers, knee-high socks and sparkly dresses. A sinister laugh sounds and 'The Time Warp' begins to play, just as I stumble free of the crowd and scurry over towards Adrian, to be halted by an already tipsy Molly Weasley in paint stained dungarees. 'HEY, IT'S HEIDI, HEY HEIDI!' she whoops, her frizzy ginger bunches jiggling as she jumps up and down.

'Hi Molly. Are you okay? I think you might need a sit down, perhaps a drink of water… or dose of knock-out gas?' I helpfully propose, attempting to ease her over to the seat beside Adrian who has now noticed my predicament and is wandering over to me.

'OH NO, I'M FIIIIIIIIIIINE. I'M FEELING SO HAPPY IN MY NAPPY. ISN'T THIS PARTY GREAT. I MEAN, THEY HAVE THOSE LITTLE SAUSAGES THAT EVERY PARTY NEEDS; IF THERE'S THE LITTLE SAUSAGES THEN WE'RE ALL GOOD, RIGHT?' she slurs over the blaring music, picking up one of the cocktail sausages from the table and flinging it blindly over her head, giggling like a toddler, which, I'm presuming she's dressed as. The red circles and drawn on extra freckles on the apples of her cheeks rise as she grins.

I nod enthusiastically with a patronising smile. 'Oh yes, the little sausages, don't we love them,' I agree, staring nervously over at Adrian who is being swallowed by the crowd thanks to a lasso wielding third year cowgirl.

Molly blearily follows my gaze and storms over to the girl with zigzagging steps. Okay, she is definitely more than tipsy and the dance has been going on for about half an hour. 'LET HEIDI'S LOVER-BOOOOY GO!' she demands, taking her rope from her and handing it to me, so that I now have Adrian on a leash.

'No, Molly, lover-boy doesn't need the lasso, give it back,' I chide, stealing amused glances at my spectacle-adorned dog.

Just as the drunk toddler is about to smack her face right into the Halloween cake, Joanna and Louis pull her back, apologising and correcting the situation.

'I WANT TO LICK THE ICING,' Molly squeals, trying to kick out of Louis' grip and failing. That's one muscle-y baby. Literally, the boy came as a baby.

Joanna, the exotic Princess, pulls her shimmering veil down in annoyance and uses it to gag the large child. 'Sorry about that guys, she got through our whole supply of fire whiskey and meade before we even made it here,' she apologises to us before pulling the other two away. Well that's the weirdest family I have ever come across.

Keren toddles over to me, black curls bouncing, pink bow and all, revealing her pointed ears. Her sequin blue top acts as a disco ball, while her big, black tutu of a skirt shades her fish-netted legs from the little reflecting dots. 'Was that Louis?' she demands, hurriedly. Before I can answer she adds, 'correction: was that Louis in nothing but a nappy?'

I nod, 'with a dummy in his mouth, yeah.'

She stands on her tiptoes, determinedly looking around like a sparkly meerkat. 'Oh there he is!' she exclaims, trotting away in his general direction. She calls back, 'have fun with lover-boy!'

'Since when did I become "lover-boy" to everyone?' Adrian bemusedly points out.

I honestly reply, thankful that we're finally getting to speak without various nutters interrupting, 'I have no idea. For once it wasn't me who came up with the nickname.'

He shrugs, pouring me a glass of pumpkin juice. 'Anyway, you look great,' he comments.

We are most definitely spooning later, you adorable thing. 'Thanks,' I smile. 'I would say the same about you, but I thought you were coming as a superhero?' I recall, referring to his jeans and white buttoned up shirt.

'I did, I'm just incognito right now,' he explains, unbuttoning his shirt. Well this is a little soon, but I'm down with it.

His open shirt reveals the Superman emblem on his t-shirt underneath. Okay, now I'm disappointed that he _did_ come as a superhero. Stupid t-shirt and its crushing of hopes.

'Ah, I see. You're glasses are even like Clarke Kent's,' I notice, finishing my pumpkin juice and leading him into the dancing crowd.

He lets me lead him, but protests, 'you want us to dance at a dance? What's that about?' I mirror his grin as he warns, 'I'm not a particularly good dancer, so I apologise in advance for stepping on your toes.'

'It's fine. We can just unenthusiastically sway and clap our hands out of time. It's actually pretty fun,' I suggest, already stamping around like the human embodiment of awkwardness with a dash of mentally challenged.

He laughs and puts one hand on my waist with the other entwined in my own. 'I think this will work better with such a depressing song,' he laughs. Everyone loves to make fun of bands like Tentacula Tears, who's every song is about how "nobody understands me. You don't know me."

'Fine, if you want to dance like _normal_ people,' I sigh in defeat, placing my other hand on his shoulder. My insides are fan-witching all over the place, it's ridiculous. I mean, it's not like his hand is on my waist, burning a hole through my dress, psht. To be honest, it may as well be. Oh Merlin almighty, Heidi, he's just put a hand on your waist, that's hardly anything worth fussing over. You're sixteen, not a "tween".

Despite my unnecessary lack of composure, I still find myself surprised that this isn't awkward. That girly smile that Keren constantly beams finds its way to my own features at the thought of me, of all people, being the one he's holding comfortably. Since when am I one to de-awkward-ise people? Shut up, that's a word.

Adrian spins me around as a more upbeat song booms through the silver horned-speakers coating the wall behind the raised platform at the front of the hall. As I'm spun and rocked around, skirt swinging, I try to start more conversation. 'Who do you think they'll have to play this year?' I ask, nodding over to the stage of speakers and instruments.

Catching me as I stumble, he answers, 'there have been rumours that it's going to be Swish and Flick, because they've got a new album to promote, but, as much as many people here would probably want to kill me for saying so, I hope it's not.'

'Don't worry, I'm not a big fan of them either,' I admit, almost tripping over again. 'These shoes are works of evil!' I reason.

'My awful dancing probably isn't helping. This is why you're not supposed to dance at dances,' he laughs, guiding me over to a gravestone seat at one of the tables by the food and drinks, pouring me another goblet of pumpkin juice.

I thank him, cringing away from a fake spider on the cobweb tablecloth. We take note of everyone's costumes, sussing out who's trying to impress who and snickering at the many drunken and/or generally stupid mishaps going on around us, such as an ego driven first year hitting on a rather repulsed Keren who is trying to ignore him and talk to Louis. Professor Lupin jigs past, having gotten hold of someone's feather boa, yelling his disgust at a student telling him he makes a hot werewolf when he's "essentially dressed as his dad".

As our attention circuits around the hall, dubbing over conversations with our own hilarity, Adrian's rests on the door, while I continue laughing at the Scamander twins running into and bowling over Professor Sinistra as sheet ghosts.

He places a hand on my shoulder and, with his eyes worriedly whipping between me and the door, he excuses himself, saying, 'I'll be right back, Heidi. Sorry.'

I gaze after his leaving form, wondering what could be wrong. As I try to imagine any possibilities I realise that I don't even know him well enough to think of any. I don't know anything about Adrian other than that he lives with his Gran. Does he have any other family? Where are his parents? What's happened throughout these sixteen years I haven't properly known him for? I want to know what makes him Adrian. The thought makes me curious of myself. The idea that I don't know much about him saddens me. Yet the prospect of me actually wanting to get to know him and the way he makes me care about how I act and look gets me thinking about how I really feel about him. I think he's smart, sweet, cute, funny, and brilliantly nerdy. We like all the same things and I find myself constantly smiling and even blushing in his presence. I'm guessing it all means that I fancy him, which, after denying so at first, I'm aware of. Just like the happy endings in all of the teenage romance novels, I'm with my "crush". Surely that's all a teenage girl could ask for, the perfect date and amazing friends? So, why am I still unhappy? It worries me more that even Potter can tell I am so, judging by our first conversation in D.A.D.A. The uneasy squirming from earlier returns, making me feel even more like a whiny child. I have nothing to be sad about, yet I am. It's pathetic and pointless and I hate feeling this way. Surely someone can't feel this way so often without there being a valid reason for it? I should really think less; if I didn't keep dwelling on depressing thoughts maybe I would feel less so.

Sick of myself once again, I push through the crowd, looking for Laura and Keren.

I spot Laura, the leafy gold wreath on her blonde waves glinting, standing at the other side with the tux trio: Malfoy in an expensive-looking grey suit, Zabini in a classic black and white one and Potter in a tuxedo (bowtie and all). How typically pompous.

They catch sight of me and Zabini wolf whistles while Malfoy's handsomely sharp face contorts with bewilderment. 'Davis, you look… nice?!' he questions, rubbing his eyes and doing double takes to make sure his vision isn't impaired.

'Whatever, Blondie,' I dismiss. 'I must say I'm both disappointed and not the slightest bit surprised to see you all in suits, just like last year and the year before and so on. I was hoping to see you all in something more amusing, like tutus, but what are your excuses this time?'

They smirk in turn, announcing their personas:

'Bond, James Bond,' Potter says.

'Agent J, Men In Black,' Zabini follows.

'An extremely attractive guy in a suit,' Malfoy drawls, smoothing out his collar and adjusting his tie.

I roll my eyes and turn to Laura, asking her where Keren is while Potter and Zabini transfigure there drinks into water pistols and shoot into the dancing throng.

She points down the hall, where I see my pixie friend latched onto baby Louis' face.

'Wow, well we're never going to hear the end of this,' I gather, turning away quickly.

Laura nods in agreement. 'Where's Adrian?' she asks.

I twiddle my thumbs and follow her lead as she sits at the nearest table. 'I don't know,' I answer, looking as perplexed as she does. 'He said he'd "be right back" and just left.'

'That's odd,' she says, pausing to think. 'Maybe he remembered something he'd forgotten to do or bring?' she offers.

'I don't know,' I repeat with my face slumped in my hand, elbow resting on the cobwebbed table.

After a moment of dazed silence, Laura claps and pulls me from my seat. 'Well, it's pointless getting down about it, after all he said he'd be back. We should be enjoying the dance!' she hoots as we head over to the dance floor, amongst the zombies, vampires and various other monsters and historic beings.

Charlie Wood, Quidditch playing ex-student, stands up on a table, dressed as Merlin. As his bottom half comes into view, it's notable that he's also wearing a mermaid tale. Interesting…

'TELL ME I'M PRETTY,' he roars overly Scottish-ly, leaping into the open arms of the crowd.

'HE DOESN'T EVEN GO HERE!' someone else hollers over the booming beat.

I'm pretty sure he shows up every year, probably due to the excessive amounts of free smuggled alcohol.

As 'Do The Hippogriff' by The Weird Sisters finishes, Professor Longbottom's voice sounds through the hall. He stands on the platform with his wand to his neck. 'I would ask you all if you're having a good time, but it's clear to see that you're having too much fun as always!' he grins, pointedly adding, 'and how _amusing_ it is to see a certain "pretty" ex-student who has invited himself yet again.'

Near the back, said self-inviter proclaims, 'I LOVE YOU LONG-BUM!'

The professor salutes and clears his throat. 'Now it's the moment you've all been waiting for! I hope you'll all join me in a grateful round of applause as I introduce this year's amazing headlining band. Let's give it up for The Rolling Scrolls!' he declares, obviously inner fan-wizarding.

Forget "grateful round of applause"; everyone goes completely ballistic, surging as close to the stage as possible when the band come into view and pick up their instruments. They begin to play and the students scream and cheer. Above the general noise, mermaid Merlin, who is still in the arms of the crowd, yells, 'STOP FEELING UP MY ARSE' and Hagrid lifts a howling Lupin onto his shoulders. I still can't get over that that man-child is a fully qualified professor.

As Laura and I jump around amongst the bustling swarm, a hand clamps down on my shoulder from behind. I jump in fright and proceed to be terrified as Keren wails in my ear, 'I JUST SNOGGED LOUIS FREAKING WEASLEY!'

'WE KNOW,' Laura and I reply in unison.

Thankfully Keren leaves her detailed recap of events until later, probably because she wants us to hear every squealed syllable – an impossible task in this manic horde of bodies. Instead we do clearly the wisest thing and we join in with the mob.

But then Father Time decides to continuously nag at me. 'Hey, Heidi, you're having fun, right? Well stop it right now; it's been forty-two minutes and fifteen seconds since Adrian disappeared,' he scolds. 'That's right, you go get a drink and pretend there's nothing wrong. Act like you have not a care in the world. Fifty-five minutes,' he taunts.

I start weaving my way through the hall, whipping my head around in search of him, but after no such luck I force down a rather generous slice of cake into my restless stomach, which I'll probably regret later. Oh Merlin, not even food is able to comfort me right now. This can never be good. My eyes keep wondering to the full moon clock on the wall. I continuously fidget, switching my weight from leg to leg every two seconds.

'One hour and twenty minutes…' the voice chides.

The screw in my head that's been slowly loosening twists away completely and clanks down into my stomach. I can't take this anymore, I have to find him.

As Keren pushes Laura into conversation with Martin Thatcher, I scurry around the rim of the hall and free myself from the stuffy dark room. My sweaty neck and forehead are relieved by the wintery chill sweeping in from the open castle doors.

If I were an anxious nerd, where would I be? Obviously the first place I can think of is the library, but it'll be closed by now. There's also Ravenclaw Tower, but that's such a ridiculously long walk. Wringing my hands together, I decide to search the ground floor, around the Great Hall. After looking around here for a while, my own anxiety will probably overthrow my laziness and I'll head up to his common room.

I peer around the balconies of the upper corridors to see nothing but a stumbling knight, clattering and clunking past the stairs. Ryan Zabini sprints after the knight in his dragon suit and leaps out of the way when his metal friend swings a very real sword at him. 'WATCH IT! Merlin Oscar, I didn't realise you took the sword as well as the armour!' he points, distressed, to a nearby podium where the suit used to stand.

'I WANT TO GO TO THE PARTAAAAYY' Laura's brother slurs, his voice booming through the metal helmet, as he spins and thrusts the air, landing on his face with the sword flying over the stone banister. Luckily, no one passes by when it whistles through the air and impales the floor below. Even I, the most accident prone sad case in the school, am standing a fair distance away.

As the knight shakily gets to his feet and hobbles away in the wrong direction, the dragon blunders after him. 'The dance is this way!' the more sober, scalier of the two shouts.

How cute, they matched their costumes. No Heidi, stop cooing at seventh years, Adrian is missing!

After checking the courtyard and nearby grounds outside, I head along the only corridor on the ground floor, towards classroom eleven. I see our Divination Professor, Firenze the centaur (who returned from his colony a few years ago to teach until we could find a replacement for retired Trelawney), reading by a tree stump in his forest-like room, but there's no sign of Adrian.

However, upon worriedly shuffling back I hear noises coming from a small storage cupboard. I gingerly grasp the handle and pull the door open, praying, 'please don't be a troll, please don't be a troll, please don't- NO WAY!' I gasp as a pale hand tugs me into the cupboard.


	11. More Magical Raving Madness

My Sixth Year: Parkinson, Pressure & Mr Al Potter

Harry Potter: Next Generation Fan Fiction

**A/N: Halloween Dance Part 2, WOO! Thank you so much for the reviews guys, please keep 'em coming and I hope you like this as much as part 1! :3**

**Chapter 11: More Magical Raving Madness**

Rose stands, flustered, in a feathery, fiery dress with winged sleeves and a golden headdress, having stopped eating Malfoy's face. The man himself rubs the back of his neck awkwardly, trying to free his foot from a bucket whilst remaining smooth and suave. Yeah, that's not happening Blondie.

Rose and Malfoy? _Rose_ and _Malfoy_? Rose the gorgeous geek and Malfoy the arrogant git? Well this is a nice little FLAMING HEADLINER. I bark with laughter, heading for the door to tell Keren and Laura about this ludicrous hallucination.

Weasley composes herself, while Malfoy dusts feathers from his suit, for once not even looking at me to make a snarky comment, and she tugs me back determinedly. 'You can't tell anyone, Heidi, _please_,' she begs.

I close my eyes and reopen them. Yep, this is really happening. 'What's the big deal? It's not like I just walked in on Rose Weasley freaking snogging Malfoy- oh wait, I did. Keren's going to love this!' I cackle.

Rose locks the door. 'No, Keren is not going to love this, because Keren is not going to know; no one is,' she whispers seriously, orange-brown eyes wide. That's one scary phoenix.

I suddenly stop laughing to whine, 'so you're expecting me to keep _this_ quiet?'

'I'm expecting you to keep this _silent_,' she corrects, arms crossed.

I mimic her actions, deciding to approach the situation from a different angle. 'I know I'm making a big deal out of this because it's you two, of all people, but really it's just your everyday kissing-in-a-cupboard-walk-in. What's the fuss?' I point out incredulously.

Scorpius decides to jump in, 'because my creepy stalkers – or "fans" – would skin Rose if they knew.'

'Over one kiss? You've kissed loads of girls and they've still got their skin, as far as I can tell underneath their cemented makeup,' I reason, growing restless. I need to find Adrian.

Rose contradicts, 'but it's not just one kiss, Heidi. We've been together since summer.'

At this, my jaw genuinely drops. Malfoy's in a relationship? Is that even possible? Especially with Rose? I believe I've found another error, one that I'm now involved in as well. Cupid, as much as I respect your chubby cherub-ness, you've arrow kebab-ed the wrong arse.

This makes no sense, but as I see the worried, caring even, way he looks at her and her pleading eyes, I decide to agree. 'Fine, I'll keep this secret,' they sigh with relief before I counter, 'BUT you guys have to be more careful. That lock should have been used _before_ you dragged my voluptuous arse in here.' I turn to Malfoy and add, 'and I know your reputation, so you better treat ginger good! I'm talking daily chocolate and spooning, okay?! And if I catch you with someone else…' I trail off, pointing at him accusingly.

'Actually she prefers cauldron cakes,' he rights, arm around her slim waist.

'Awww, you know her food preferences! Okay, by that I am convinced,' I declare, pinching his cheek as I coo. I unlock the door and squeeze out of the cupboard. 'Remember in this case your wand has to be covered before making magic!' I sing as I close the door, catching Rose face palming in mortification and Malfoy smirking. At least one thing hasn't changed about him – not that I like his usual self, it's just really disorientating having him be civil and non-sarcastic.

As long as this new side of him is wise enough to heed my warnings, then I guess I'm happy enough. Well, as happy as I can be when my every cell is desperate to find Adrian. I peer through the window of classroom eleven again to check the time. It's been about two hours since he left. I've been out of the hall for quite a while, maybe he went back to the dance while I was in the cupboard of surprises? With this hopeful prospect, I leave the dark madness of the cupboard for that of the hall.

The Rolling Scrolls are still playing while the crowd thrashes around. I skim the masses of people, trying to spot the glare of his glasses or the bold emblem on his t-shirt. I spot my sister in her lacy dress and flowery headdress from my Aunt's wedding, strumming her cardboard and elastic band harp like she knows who The Rolling Scrolls even are. Luciana, in cropped jeans, a striped t-shirt and bandana, dances beside her, holding her fake sword above her head. A twinge of annoyance crosses my mind as I point out to myself that no doubt those quarter-length jeans are going to get progressively shorter over the next few years, perhaps along with her shirt as well. Stupid society. I shake the thought off – I think it's best I don't add anymore issues to my list right now – and I continue scanning the room. We have Hugo, in soldier uniform, pulling his friends around in a sparkly, rollerblading conga. Over to the left I see Michaela and Paloma, both dressed as nurses who are most definitely breaking every hospital's uniform accords, flirting with seventh years Phoenix Solomon, Ravenclaw beater, and Richard Crosbee, Hufflepuff chaser. '_They_ are hitting on a Hufflepuff?!' I hear you ask. It's probably because he's Irish. What else do we have? A group of overly fascinated first years trying to catch the bewitched bats, an Adrian-less manic mosh pit and- a-ha! There're Keren and Laura!

I approach the table where Keren is downing a bowl of meade, whilst Louis, Ezra and Fred chant, 'chug, chug, chug!' and Laura shakes her head in disgust. Joanna chortles beside Fred with Molly blackout-unconscious on her shoulder.

Keren finishes off the bowl, moaning about the fowl taste. Tomorrow morning with the pixie is not going to be pleasant.

Fred, wearing a flowery dress and blonde wig and waving a baguette around, praises in a feminine, mediocre French accent, 'oui, oui! Magnifique!'

I gawk at him in horror and he bats his wonky, spidery eyelashes at me. Ezra Thomas, in a knitted jumper and bright orange wig, grins, 'hello there, I'm Bill Chocolate Orange Weasley and this is my wife, Fleur! Isn't she pretty?'

Wow. It seems I have again found myself questioning whether to be terrified or amused. I guess some things just stun the senses, like Fred Weasley in a frilly dress with fake tits bulging out.

'Yeah, she's something!' I agree as Fred Delacour giggles with red lipstick on his teeth.

I manage to tear my eyes and mind away from the bizarre distractions, even the hairy she-man, to see Laura's face twitching uncontrollably from the desperately pleading look she's sending my way. I pull her from amongst the madness and voice my worries to her.

'That can't be good. I thought you'd found him and had been with him this whole time, that's why I've been putting up with that lot,' Laura explains, jabbing a thumb at Fred who is searching for his baguette under the table (let's not over-analyse that sentence).

'Sorry, I would have come for you sooner, but I thought you'd be happy with Ker,' I say sympathetically.

Laura nods, 'I was, but then the blonde baby joined us, along with enough drink for a giant's stag-do, and I became invisible.' She notices my alarmed look and answers my unasked question, 'don't worry. I checked that it hadn't been tampered with and that was just her first bowl.'

'Yeah, well, we should probably stop her from having too many _bowls_,' I suggest. 'I just came back to see if you'd spotted him anywhere?'

She shakes her head while rotating it to scan the room one last time. 'No, sor-'

'What's all the secretiveness about, am I not part of the _crew_ anymore?' Keren demands, eyes gleaming and breath overpowering, but still walking normally. 'Is this about lover boy? I saw him running off a little while ago. He'd been talking to Professor Vector,' she informs me and I cling onto every word loudly erupting from her mouth, above the blasting music.

Just as I was starting to accept defeat and grudgingly move on, this new knowledge has brought the sinking feeling back and I feel my insides start to writhe and clench again. I drape an arm across my stomach, protectively. My hand ascends to rake through my hair, but Keren slaps it away in order of preserving her masterpiece.

Laura takes hold of the lost hand and leans close to me, asking 'are you okay, Heidi? You don't look too great.'

I swallow down the bubbling anxiety brewing in the pit of my stomach. What's wrong with me? So what if Adrian's missing? Of course I like him, but why am I so nervous, distracted and worried, physically, sick? If he's upset he'll just need time to sort himself out – it's not like I know anything about his relationship with his Gran, though I wish I did. Right, I'll just give him the time he needs to recover from whatever is going on with him and for now I shall try to enjoy the dance, after all that's what tonight is all about.

'I'm fine,' I firmly reply, taking Keren's hand in my free one and leading them into the gathering of dancing creatures of muggle, wizarding and unrecognisable kind.

…

Thunder rolls and lightning flashes in the swirling purple, amongst the scattered, grinning orange of pumpkins. The dark silhouettes merge into one swarming, black mass, fists in the air in salute of the guitar riffs blasting from the walls, while the heart of the hall, the queen pumpkin, the mass of glaring fire that pulls the more inferior of its kind into orbit, bears down on us. She taunts me. Lightning flashes. Thunder rolls; a deep growling that coughs and splutters and booms; her laughter. She spits flames. The light illuminates my shiny face for a split second and I flinch.

I thought I was going completely bonkers.

I began to freak out because I saw her face move, smirking, mocking me. But as it so turns out, this place is actually a magical school – who would have known, eh? Her face was in fact moving. She has been bewitched to terrify us and it's working splendidly on me, despite me not having consumed a drop of alcohol. The lightning whips again and I bury my face in my hands, thankful for Keren's makeup holding charms as I would not like to face her drunken wrath if I were to mess it up. Can you believe it? This is what I have come to – worrying about my makeup?! For the past half hour or so (I'm not even sure what year it is anymore), I have been trying to think of absolutely anything other than a certain adorable, missing nerd. It just so happens that you've caught me at the desperate stage of having a breakdown at the hand of a big, glowing fruit. Anything to keep my mind from Adrian.

Oh now I've done it.

I flee from the hall, internal knots tightening further, and drag myself up the stairs, thankful for the cooler air outwith the body-heat brew of the Great Hall.

My tired ankles protest as they're forced to bear my weight on these high heels, up to the first floor corridor. My quick steps clap sharply, echoing along the stone and marble corridor and into the first floor landing of the stone bridge tower.

Since the war, house unity has been enthusiastically promoted through mixed-house classes and now you're even allowed in one another's common rooms if you are accompanied by someone of that house. Thanks to this I have been able to "assist" Rose with our joint potions work without going to the library to have Madame Pince (yes, that silly bat is still alive) turn her nose up at us. Beforehand, most non-Ravenclaw students only knew that the common room was in one of the four towers surrounding the Quad, but now we know it's on the fifth floor of stone bridge tower, more commonly known as Ravenclaw Tower. So I am going to need a naive Ravenclaw first year to allow me into their glorious library of a common room. Some of them are poor little innocent things while the rest are irritating midget peasants who think it is okay to use up my Monster Milk at breakfast. Yet, despite these accurate generalisations, I have yet to come across a naïve Ravenclaw first year, hence my newfound problem. I could always answer the riddle at the door correctly. Hah, I'm so funny.

If Adrian is upset about something, should I really be chasing after him? Will he want to be alone or will he want a sympathetic shoulder to cry on? Or perhaps my sarcastic, clumsy, self-mocking humour will cheer him up? Not only do I know little about Adrian, I know nothing about _people_. You know what, once I find him I'll let him decide. I just need to know that he's not hurt, completely missing or angry at me for some reason. I haven't done anything wrong, have I? Why do you create more questions and problems when you're confused? It just confuses you further! My head is throbbing painfully from all of these jumbled up thoughts and self-accusations and the unsettled gurgling and tingling in my stomach seems to be competing with it. Yeah, body, let's see who can cause me the most pain and distress, because that will be fun and I'd love it so much.

Ugh, stairs. I gawk lazily up the turret at the never-ending winding staircase with utter disgust. I knew this point of my quest would take the most convincing for me.

You can do this Heidi! Finding him will end all of this ridiculousness!

I've noticed how fragile a subject family is for Adrian, judging by his reaction to his Gran being brought up on any occasion, and if he is upset at her hand, I don't know what could happen. I don't even know what's going on with them! Adrian is brilliant, but Adrian is a difficult chest to unlock. He will warm up to me and confide in me in time, but right now he is alone and upset and missing and the first two apply to me also! What if he's in trouble, or hurt, or vanished, or worried about me because he can't find me and I've just been missing him every time I move? What if he's done something really stupid? It may sound extreme, but how am I supposed to know how bad his family situation is? In fact, I don't even know if there is a situation at all! This whole night has been a continuous, terrifying build up of hair-tearing stress and I don't know what's real or what I've made up anymore. I try to swallow nothing and grip my pulsating sore head.

What's wrong with me?

One foot still poised on the first step, I head to shift my weight onto it and clamber up to the Ravenclaw common room when I realise my surroundings are alive – whispering voices, gasps and moving figures. The portraits plastering the tower walls are humming with airy secrets and shocked reactions, carrying from one painting to another, all the way up the turret until the whispers collectively bring a faint echo rebounding back down towards me. Their buzz doesn't reach me though; not with every retelling of the triggering story sounding at once. I guess to find out the story I'll have to retrace the whispers' travels. Curiosity just managing to outdo both my laziness and worry for Adrian, I cautiously follow the flood of historic and fictional beings as they pass through each other's paintings, towards the origin of the fuss.

I turn the corner from the first floor tower entrance, into the first floor corridor to be met with an unbearable chilling sensation. The icy, empty cold of the dead washes over me, leaving me twitching and shivering as the Bloody Baron floats through me, not seeming to notice my blatant presence.

I have never felt this uncomfortable in my life; frozen in every crevice, aching ankles, pounding head, overwhelmed with thoughts and emotions, and driving myself insane with all of these issues, both real and self-created. Yet, here I go, about to add another mentally tipping element to my fragile scales. With sudden frustration, at both myself and the Baron, taking over above all else, I follow him back into the tower and call indignantly to him, 'does one not think it mildly rude to walk_ through_ someone?'

At the sound of my accusing and threatening tone, the Baron swivels slowly on the spot, hovering in his translucent silvery-blue state with a face of pure, muscle-tensing fear. A pang of guilt sinks down within me, quenching the fire and leaving the lingering steam of anger at my outburst to evaporate into confused, dazed indifference on top of my worry.

The Bloody Baron, chains not rattling their usual jangle due to his playing a transparent statue, looks down at me, but not in his regular, brooding and intimidating manner, not even in his common depressing state of misery, but as though he had seen something beyond a ghost. For the Baron to be in this frightened way, this "something" must have been dreadful.

With anxiety twisting with fizzling fright, eating away from inside of me, my suspicious instincts spout forth the question, 'what happened?'

His shocked face remains unmoving, apart from his mouth, which raspily forms the words, 'I don't know.' Inhaling a sharp, unnecessary breath, he drifts up the winding turret stairs, dazedly not caring for his lack of need to use them, as close to solid stone as a moving, see-through soul can be.

I walk back past the underappreciated brushwork of the backgrounds of the paintings – empty chairs at empty tables, frames with no hosts – and back along the first floor corridor until I reach a huddle of canvases adorning the whole corridor's painted figure populous. They bustle, they gasp and they whisper, the stragglers trying to push their way into the few full frames to no avail. I round the corner at the end of the corridor to find the rest of the portraits there also packed to their limits, all delicately painted eyes pointing at a hump of fur in the middle of the corridor. Fear of the unknown speeds up my internal erosion as I creep up to the source of these strange events: an unconscious cat.

Is that it, really? Take Lucifer with you, furball, for all I care!

Baffled as to why a cat has caused all of this, I kneel down to it, inspecting it with an uncomfortably close eye.

Yes, you may argue that cats are cute and fluffy, but you would understand my feud with them if you had to put up with their insistence on being your wardrobe and engulfing you in heaps of their moulting hair. It's as though they think, 'I'm a little warm here, clinging to Heidi in her bed with every other cat in existence, so I think I'll just shed half of my body mass off on her head because she's looking a little bit bald.' If you ask me, they started it.

This particular bundle of evil appears to have its tongue lolling out intelligently, in a sprawled position, generally not to be associated with self-righteously graceful felines. I check its pulse to find the faint, but definite beat present and check its surroundings; bare, dry, stormy marble, grey cracking through the dull white like lightning with blurred smears of cloud. In conclusion, the cat collapsed here and the portraits present at the time will know the cause. Perhaps too much to drink? Is this Merlin giving me a sign to tell me my pumpkin juice has been spiked again? Anyway, it's pointless trying to find the witnesses amongst the gossiping hordes on the walls. I'll leave the caretaker to find the cat. It should come around soon enough. I still don't get why the paintings are so interested or why the Baron was so scared though.

As I stand up straight, straining against the weight of this messed up night, and start to swiftly trot back to the tower stairs (it's about time I solve one of my own problems), I hear a gravelly male voice declare, 'there he is!' above the din of rumours.

I turn to find the figures in the paintings by the corridor window behind me, all facing the side of their frames, trying to see out of the glass. I follow their lead and peer out of it, through the darkness of a wintery night, to see none other than James Potter walking with sullen purpose across the courtyard of the Quad, illuminated by the faint golden glow of torches.

James is involved.

As my heart thrums heavily, gaining speed, in time with my throbbing headache, I think it's safe to say that I am now interested. I walk blindly.

Adrian's missing, Adrian's upset, what if Adrian does something extreme because he has all of these issues you don't know about? You're not trusted, you're not important; who would confide in a weirdo like you? He's hurting – you're not there. He's missing – you're selfishly complaining about your own issues and trying to solve fruitless mysteries. You'll only take part if there's something in it for you. You neither wanted nor needed by anyone, not even by your parents; your father only cares about work and his small talk and jokes, while your mother lives solely for your younger siblings. Laura and Keren would be better off without you, the sarcastic one that puts a downer on everything and embarrasses them with her stupid behaviour. They could have real friends if they weren't stuck with a nutter like you. Are you wondering who I am? I'm your own buried self-hatred. No one knows about me. You filter me away and bottle me up, channelling the dregs of bitterness into your pathetic, sarcastic humour. You're not laughing now though. Right about now you're going to feel heat rising to your face to boil up some pointless tears, but you're not going to set them free because you live a lie, Heidi Davis-Macmillan. You are the definition of denial.

My own voice taunts me. I don't know what's happening.

Peeves floats past amongst my swirling surroundings, singing:

'Heidi-Weidi's head's not tidy.  
She can't see, whoops-y,  
she stood in Pucey's pile of pukey,  
'cause Heidi-Weidi's head's not tidy.'

How am I so lost in my own mind, forget the school? I don't even understand how I'm moving right now. I couldn't even grasp control over myself if I wanted to; I can't breathe and the corridors are shrinking around me, closing in, trapping me. My stomach is writhing as it has all night, but I can hardly feel it underneath the pain of my sorehead and the panic rising within me. My weak legs are carrying me obliviously, but my heart, mind and breathing are fast paced and ragged.

James: the cat, the Baron, Fred, Joanna, Al.

Bet: Laura, Keren, Malfoy, Thatcher, Al.

Rose: Scorpius, secrets, pressure, Adrian.

Disappearance: worried, panicked, scared, confused, Adrian, and me.

No one is around and there are no sounds around me, but I feel so overwhelmed and claustrophobic that I want to curl up in a ball on the stone steps beneath my feet, with my hands over my ears, screaming.

I've felt like this before. Stressed or not, I sometimes get this overwhelming flood of anxiety and I can't breathe. My parents say they're panic attacks and that I should find a space alone to calm myself down. Well I've got the alone part down to a big, fat, colossal, ALONE. And it just so happens that my stumbling legs aren't so oblivious, as they've carried me out of the entrance hall doors, into the freezing fresh air.

I sit on the top step, telling myself that all of this is unnecessary. I have nothing to be stressed about, I'm fine, I can breathe. I slow myself down, inhaling and exhaling deeply in rhythm and my heartbeat calms down considerably. I just need to relax my mind, that's all. I think way too much for my own good, with that I'm sure you will agree, seeing as all you get are my silly thoughts and actions.

Since when was I such a mess? By "mess" I'm referring to my genuine insanity rather than my mad personality. I'm just a big bundle of weird and although I'm used to it, these panic attacks over seemingly nothing are still extremely unpleasant. With the hysteria of my come down from the horrific blur, this is the point when I shake my head at myself; my reasons for getting so worked up are laughable: a stupid "secret relationship", my "crush" leaving my side for more than two minutes and a comatose cat with its tongue hanging out. Though, something most definitely strange is going on with James.

'Is the craziness in there too mundane for you, Dino?'

I turn to the sound of the painfully recognisable voice and drawl in return, 'yes, listening to Ezra Thomas wail "ebony and gingery" in a luminous orange wig, whilst skipping around, holding hands with Fred in a dress, was far too boring.'

'At least you didn't face-plant into Fred's fake cleavage,' he grimaces, leaning against one of the open doors behind me.

I laugh, for once thankful for his presence, feeling my shoulders slacken and anxiety fade for the most part. 'I would presume that that is why you have ran away from the hall, but I already know that it's because you love me and were dying to see me,' I mock, looking up at the few stars peeking through the dense black of cloud and sky, noticing the close-to-full moon and wondering what could be lurking in the forbidden forest.

He smirks and shoots a spurt of water at me from his pistol, dampening the back of my hair slightly.

I shrug, 'Keren's going to decapitate you for that.'

I hear the ding and gulp of him taking a swig from a bottle of fire whiskey.

'And you would be filled with remorse and grief, professing how you were completely enamoured with me and at my extravagant funeral, all would speak of how sorrowful a waste it was for such a handsome head to be cut off,' he babbles, hand to his chest.

I shake my head with a disapproving raised eyebrow. 'I imagine that you have fantasised about this on many an occasion,' I sneer, feeling irritated when all I get is a smirk in return. How come he manages to rile me up so easily, yet I can't do so to him?

After a silence, disrupted only by the rustling of trees, the hoot of an owl and Potter tapping an annoying rhythm on his glass bottle, he asks, 'so why are you really out here?'

From the habitual system of our snarky conversations, another snide retort automatically slides from my brain to the tip of my tongue, ready to be dispensed, but then I realise that this is one of my problems. I need to start telling the truth, even if it is to Potter, besides, he needs my update on James anyway. Although, he'll probably mock me for certain elements of the truth, so I shall keep it simple and discreet. 'I needed some fresh air; everything was getting a bit much for me, the tipping point being your bonkers brother,' I confess, looking up behind me to see his distaste.

'Don't call him that. He's not being himself. He-' Potter freezes and rewinds, clearing his throat. He restarts, 'what did he do?'

'I don't know,' I answer honestly. 'I saw a knocked-out cat on the first floor corridor and the paintings all directed me to the window where I saw James walking through the Quad. Also, the Bloody Baron was floating away from the scene, looking pretty terrified. I wish I'd been quicker, then I would have seen what had happened. How are we supposed to piece together an unconscious cat, a scared ghost and a _mislead_ senior?'

Potter's brow furrows with my every word, ending up as baffled as I have been for the past I don't even know how long. Judging by his dissecting gaze on me, it seems as though he has noticed my edginess and the slither of frazzled emotions, worry and fear, escaping through my tone and eyes. His eyes narrow as he scrutinises me. 'How strange,' he states.

Woah, it's James you're supposed to be investigating, not me, _chump_. I roll my eyes again, not gracing his ludicrous behaviour with any response, and turn back around to face the grounds spanning out below the stone steps. I expect him to stand a little longer, inspecting me over nothing, and then to head back to the dance which is oozing with more interesting subjects.

Instead, he ponders a while and comes up with a plan: 'I'd say our best shot at figuring out what happened would be to ask the Baron about it, after giving him some time to recover from whatever it was that frightened him.' He steps forward to stand above me, presumably not sitting down because of his fancy suit. He exhales deeply, creating a puff of steam from his hot breath against the nippy air, which stings my nose and pricks goose bumps along my bare skin. He continues, 'for now, we should enjoy the dance. It's pointless letting all of the built-up hype of the past few months go to waste.'

I don't look up at him for my dislike of making him feel superior, when really he's just a whiny girl who doesn't want to ruin his outfit. Whereas I say, '_I hope my cousin likes gritty silk dresses_!'

'How can someone find being hurled around and hurled upon by masses of sweaty, hormonal, drunk teenagers enjoyable?' I scoff, standing up and brushing myself off.

In response, he pries the metal cap off of a fresh fire whiskey and holds it out to me.

I cross my arms accusingly, eyebrows arching like question marks.

'Since when were you so uptight, Dino?' he teases with a deep, claw-introducing smirk.

Of course, I rise to his bait, because I'm stupid. I snatch the fire whiskey from his offering hand and strop back to the hall indignantly, leaving an overly pleased Potter to gallivant in my wake.

And, of course, I rise further to his bait, eating the whole freaking fishing rod, as one fire whiskey is followed by another and then another, because I'm stupidly stupid.

…

I slump with my aching head in my hands at the Slytherin table. Laura's snores into her breakfast amplify when they reach my throbbing mind. Now I remember why I don't drink. It's as though elephants are thumping around in there, carrying millions of those creepy cymbal-crashing wind-up monkeys, followed by an infinite amount of marching bands, timpani bands, punk bands, battlefields, minefields and the opera-screeching fat lady. I can't even tell if I can remember anything beyond my conversation with Potter last night, because my senses have been numbed, yet are still hurting. How is this possible? I swear I'm going to chop Potter into little seasoned morsels of git and feed them to Lucifer, and then I'll politely scold myself for listening to him and make two hundred cups of tea, because I need them in my life right now.

You know what the worst part is? I'M TOO SICK TO EAT. Ouch, I should not even be internally shouting – loud noises are bad things – but still, I'd never thought this retched day would come. Eating is something I'm good at and cake makes me feel like rainbows, but now everything is stormy and crap.

And that, dearest creepers, is the deepest I shall ever get.

Keren sits across from me, pulling and poking at the prominent bags under her eyes in horror. Her neglected fry up is pushed away from her, instead giving me desire to vomit from its smell,

I slide the putrid plate down the table, wincing as it falls right off the end and smashes, showering the floor with beans and bacon.

My first major Heidi-like act of the day provokes unwanted attention as Potter walks briskly past me, beaming cheerfully as he sings, 'wonderful morning Davis!'

My kinder and more compassionate side growls, 'PISS OFF!' and I throw an empty goblet over my shoulder in his general direction, hearing a disgruntled protest from the innocent bystander who received the blow.

You know what I need right now?

I lift my gaze to its common spot at the Ravenclaw table, desperate to find Adrian's contagious smile. Only Rose is there to wave in return, the benches around her untaken and Adrian-less.

I smile half heartedly, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in my empty, unsettled stomach as she leaves her seat, books under her arm, for the door which Malfoy's blonde head is already bobbing through.

She looks at me intensely and pointedly, reminding me of one of my new pressures, and I nod reassuringly, though I doubt it appeared at all sincere coming from me in this sluggish state.

Why couldn't Rose and Malfoy have just locked the door and saved me from involvement? Sure, it's pretty neat to be the first to know, but to have to pull Malfoy's weight, seeing as I really can't imagine him trying very hard to be discreet, is beyond pants. Merlin's pants. Yes, I went there.

Adrian, Potter, Rose, Malfoy… When will it end?

Not wanting to do that thing where I confuse myself with too much stupidity I'm surrounded and forced upon with, my body rejects my thoughts along with the nothingness in my stomach, as I throw up on the table in front of me, managing to dribble some of it into Laura's drink.

Of course, Laura chooses to now wake up and drink from that very same goblet to then spit it back up over me.

Don't we all love Mondays?

**A/N: I hope you enjoyed that craziness! Now, for the reference list:**

"**The Rolling Scrolls" – play on The Rolling Stones.  
"He doesn't even go here!" – altered from Mean Girls.  
"The Weird Sisters" – wizard rock band from the franchise, "Do The Hippogriff" being one of their songs.  
I don't own any of the characters students were dressed up as.  
"Swish and Flick" – wrock band.  
"The Time Warp" – Rocky Horror.  
"Empty chairs at empty tables" – altered from Les Miserables  
I think that's them all… XD**


	12. The Market Boy & the Missed

My Sixth Year: Parkinson, Pressure & Mr Al Potter

Harry Potter: Next Generation Fan Fiction

**A/N: Why hello there! I apologise for the wait, but the past few weeks have been pretty hectic, what with starting a new year at school and my best friend, (Cupcakes And Accents) who reads the story and was my inspiration for Heidi, moving to another country. Yeah, that's not been pleasant. I miss you, by the way. Why'd you leave? Just- just no. I'm not okay with that. I may or may not be in one of your boxes…  
Anyway :L Here is the update! I apologise for any errors as I have been up late finishing and proof reading it without the desperately needed aid of tea.**

**Chapter 12: The Market Boy & the Missed**

Friday 6th November, 2023.

Dear Diary,

I would like to start off this entry by announcing that I am going to accept you for who you are from now on. You are not a documentation journal, you are my diary; you work that sparkly leather cover, girlfriend… or boyfriend, or… other (I'm not judging).

I would also like to apologise for my writing this entry at six in the morning, when you'd obviously much rather be gaining beauty sleep so that your pages don't wrinkle before their time, but it is a precaution for our well being. Last time I spent the day with Potter, I fell asleep with exhaustion from his antics as soon as I got back to the dorm, henceforth I didn't give you an entry _and_ I missed dinner. I missed dinner. I do not want to have to write such an abysmal combination of letters ever again, which is why I am writing today's entry in the morning. This way you get your fill and I can welcome sleep straight after dinner tonight, which I shall not be forgetting.

I have spotted the obvious flaw in this plan though, as I have ran out of things to write due to it being six in the morning, before all of the irritations of the day have happened. However, I have been writing this with Ray precariously perched on my head, claws trying to cave my skull in, so I think you should be impressed by my ability to write eligible sentences whilst crumbling under immense annoyance and pain.

No doubt I will catch you up with all of my further pains and annoyances, in the name of Albus Potter, in tomorrow's entry. For now, I say adieu to pry an owl from my hair and spend all of my free periods with Smirky. Don't you wish you were me? (If you do you must be more insane than I am, but can we swap lives? Until dinner, that is.)

…

'What if the cat had gotten too drunk and threw up on the Bloody Baron and then James walked on by and just decided to kick it unconscious?' I propose yet another one of my genius, realistic Halloween incident theories to Potter between wheezing breaths, struggling to keep up with his quick, canyon-bounding steps.

Robes billowing out at me, threatening to get caught under my flying feet, as he speed walks, he argues, 'one, you can't vomit on a transparent being, and two, I highly doubt anyone, other than you, would randomly decide to kick a cat.'

'Well if it did puke on the ghost that would explain why he was so shocked!' I euphorically reason, as though having a revelation, before pointing out, 'well James kicked Scorpius, so…'

Potter catches a fanged frisbee as it whizzes over my head (there's no way a first year could throw it high enough to pass over Potter – he's like a spindly tree, specifically, one that won't _slow down_) and he tucks it inside his robes, smirking a thanks to the grumbling first year owner. I'm not going to comment on this seeing as I can't decide whether I despise the first year or the pompous prefect more.

We hurry through the busy corridor as the bell signalling the start of classes makes its dull _bong_. Weaving between the bodies, he calls over the ruckus, 'there's a difference, cats are cute and Scorpius is-'

'Unbelievably sexy!' Blondie himself interjects as he strolls past, to his first class, with a textbook under his arm and Rose subtly slinking through the crowd behind him.

'Be that as he wishes,' I counteract finally, 'cats are evil and that collapsed furball has every bit to do with this as James does.'

Potter sighs in defeat, muttering to himself under his breath, 'there's no point even trying, mate.'

A gobstone squirts a pungent, viscous liquid at one of the second year players as we pass the finishing game in the Quad. He flails around, nearly whacking me in the face.

'Watch it!' I growl and Potter tugs me sharply to the right by my robe sleeve, dragging me into Ravenclaw Tower and preventing me from pouncing on the dripping midget. I free the fabric from his grasp, showing him his assistance is neither wanted nor needed, and scurry after him, but it's difficult to be appear as an independent woman when you're panting and galloping after an arrogant sod.

'Oi! Giraffe legs! Fancy slowing down at all?' I holler breathlessly up the spiralling stairs, holding one leg at a time and literally lifting them up and manually placing them down on each step.

He leans against the banister by the exit to the first floor corridor, arms crossed, shaking his head down at me.

Dragging out time along with my lazy steps, I sneer, 'stop looking at me like that.'

'Like what?' he challenges with a curiously raised eyebrow underneath his dark, wavy, forwarded hair. His smirk droops, etching the dimples further into his pale cheeks.

'Like an impatient father waiting for the disappointing runt to catch up with the rest of the family,' I answer accusingly, crawling up the last few steps and ignoring his outstretched helping hand, just managing to hoist myself up by the banister.

He rolls his eyes and scoffs at my proud beam and sigh from triumphing the stairs. 'Come on, little piggy, we have paintings to interrogate,' he chides.

Having regained my breath, I yell, 'don't you be patronising me!'

The sound echoes up the empty turret, all students having gone to their first class, and birds erupt out of the windows from their rest on the beams. I splutter as Potter smothers my face with his hand, shushing me. He creeps into the open corridor, still holding my face. I try to hit his hand away but instead, I end up with a pink forehead from smacking myself. Who does he think he is? Look at him being all "Mr Serious Spy Man". Gross-out gadget engage!

Potter cringes away from my satisfied giggling and shakes his hand in disgust. 'Did you just lick me?!' he demands, his voice taking on that impressively high-pitched shriek that gives me a six pack.

'Shhh!' I mock, dancing ahead on my tiptoes, turning around to simper, 'come on, little piggy, we have paintings to interrogate.'

He laughs sarcastically, wiping his hand on the back of my robes while I try to bat him away. We continue to mutedly squabble as we head down the corridor, the daintily painted faces on the walls peering at us curiously. I hear a stuffy Englishman drawl from one of the chipping frames, 'I believe this behaviour is what one would call a "domestic" in modern terms.'

'How peculiar a phrase,' the likeness next to him notes, his neat moustache quivering. As Potter pries himself from my headlock, the man adds, 'I shall never understand why it is to be found acceptable for a woman to act in such a way in this new state of society; a woman is to respect her superior.'

Upon hearing this, I ready myself to karate chop some canvases, but then I see Emmeline Pankhurst grabbing him by the ruff from the next painting along and decide that the muggleborn suffragette has got it covered.

Tugging my sleeve from Potter's grip once again, we round the corner to find the place of the scene I encountered on Halloween, our petty bickering fading for sudden wariness. The cat is no longer here, what with it being nearly a week after the dance, but the air carries a haunting chill that no breeze from the Quad could amount to; an eerie wave, like the air is clouded with ghosts. It raises Goosebumps on my arms as it seeps through my skin and keeps burying within me, the cold tingling lingering in its wake, but there are no ghosts to be seen, not even the Baron.

Though we are not here to examine the "scene of the crime", so to speak. It would be pointless, for the whole castle was polished clean after the hung-over clear up turned into a throw up – luckily Hagrid made it to a pumpkin in time, otherwise we would all be shaking in our showers, never leaving for the scarring trauma. Instead, we are hunting down witnesses, and so our scrutinising stares move down from the strange air to the frames on the walls.

Whilst a painted women's rights riot breaks out around the corner, the paintings here are silent, bar for the occasional suspicious whisper, all gazing intently at us. We must be the highlight of their day; I can't imagine hanging on a stone wall, watching life mosey on by for centuries is particularly fun. That's why they thrive on even the slightest change in events or pass of secret. But now they have visitors for them, the shadows of the past in oil form, forever just being _there_, in the background.

A nudge to my right arm pulls me back from canvas to corridor. I notice the white noise of the war around the bend has grown nonexistent as even those paintings seem to find our interest in them more worthy of their time (not that they don't have enough of that though – they can always riot again later, perhaps for a few centuries if they feel like it).

Potter nods at me expectantly, closely noting the reactions of the painted figures as he starts to pace alongside the walls, scanning them, envious green on the browns of old.

I clear my throat awkwardly, muttering to myself, 'oh what did you do today, Heidi? Nothing much, just dove down Van Gogh's throat. We have a right old laugh when I scream at him to "TELL ME ALL YOU KNOW".'

Oops, that was a little louder than I intended. Now even Jesus looks terrified and he's nailed to a cross.

Potter jumps slightly, holding his hands up, bewildered, with his usual look of, 'what on wizard earth goes on in that nutter's so-called brain?'

I laugh nervously, 'don't mind me. I was just talking to myself because I'm nicer company than those I'm forced upon with these days.' I swivel my head pointedly at Potter, who returns the favour with a delightful sarcastic smile and waves for me to get to the point. And so I do, declaring to my audience, 'hey, so you may all recognise me as that indisputably sexy 50s girl-' and that'd be Potter rolling his eyes and face palming already '-who stumbled on by here when the area was inhabited by a ghosted ghost, an unfortunately not quite dead cat, and the world's moodiest teenager. Well, about that, I was hoping you could all fill me in on what happened before your night got better, y'know, when I showed up.' Unable to help myself, I start to chuckle and stupidly voice my far too dad-like musing, 'I guess I'm asking you to paint me a picture!'

I bark a wheezy laugh and perform a drum roll and cymbal crash on the air, before taking in their bemused, worried faces and quickly sobering myself, mumbling, 'tough crowd.' The only sound for a few painful seconds is the bleating of sheep in the framed farm to my left.

Before I get a chance to lecture Old McDonald on the sass levels of his livestock, Potter gets up from being an ashamed ball on the floor and brushes himself off, determinedly righting, 'I apologise for this, it doesn't know our ways,' he "sympathetically" tousles my hair, receiving a death glare for the belittling comment. 'However, we really do need to know what happened here before and after this _oddity_ showed up,' he announces, gesturing to me and waiting for anyone to come forth with the story in question.

No one does so, unless all of the racket from the sheep are their recollections, but I'm going to need a really talented translator for that.

They glance at one another nervously, seemingly remembering the strange events. However, one of them, a scrawny Victorian boy with an airy voice, steps forward from the painted market behind him and curiously voices, 'what does it have to do with you?'

'Well of course, the girl was affected by it!' an eccentric middle aged woman shrieks from above him, her wig jiggling.

'What do you mean? How was she affected?' Potter demands, abruptly, looking at me with intense, reproachful green eyes. 'You didn't mention anything about this,' he states the fact in accusation.

I hold my hands up in defence with narrow, disbelieving eyes, shaking my head, offended by his lack of faith – sure, I may be one of the madder ones, but I'm still reliable! If I had been possessed by a demon cat or something, I would have been sure to inform him! Someone would have had to host my exorcism!

'Because it isn't true!' I exclaim.

His glare mirrors mine, speculating my features for any signs of falsehood. Once satisfied, he switches his gaze to the wigged woman, not an apology to be heard or a contrite nod for forgiveness. His eyes don't even soften. He doesn't look at me. Typical.

Instead, he repeats his question, altering it slightly so to only aggravate me, rather than set me off on a rampage, 'how did she _appear_ to be affected?'

The lady, looking like she wishes she had never said anything, excuses herself, 'it's nothing, no matter.' She extends her fan to shield herself from his scrutinising stare.

Potter swallows visibly and clenches his jaw along with his fist. 'Listen,' he proclaims, 'that other student that was involved is my brother,' he pauses to see their ashamed and worried glances as he opens their minds to the point of all of this. 'Something's happened to him, he's acting beyond strange, and I want- no- _need _to know what. So, please, just tell us what happened, including what you saw when Heidi showed up,' he pleads, breathily, looking rather fed up.

A chimney sweep, a few paintings along from the young boy, twirls his sweeper in the air. It changes from sooty broom to graceful wand as he speaks up, 'That's just the thing, ain't it? We don't got no clue what happened.' I pace towards his frame as he props himself against a rough-brushed chimney and continues, 'but we know what we saw. That young bloke were walkin' along this 'ere corridor with a right moody mug on and that cat you saw was headin' along from the other end, roun' by Ol' Batty Barton,' he points to a painting at the edge of the wall, of a frazzled butler running around a post-war battlefield, polishing the fallen soldiers' armour.

Potter and I grimace in unison before returning our attention to the Cockney man.

The confident sweep needs no encouragement, unlike the other unsure faces, as he dives into his memory again, 'it was real strange though, the cat.' His eyes reduce to slits as he remembers, describing, 'like it were almost walkin' like it had somethin' to do, smart, like a human. But the weirdest thing were the necklace around its neck-'

'The cat was wearing a necklace?' Potter interjects, bemusedly.

I scoff, 'well _sorry_ if evil likes to look nice on Halloween occasions.'

My Potter pal rolls his eyes and nods at the man to continue, 'what happened next?'

'Well, the cat were draggin' a necklace aroun' its neck, as I say, and 'en it started curlin' in aroun' the bloke's legs, like cats do,' he recalls.

I nod ruefully, knowing full well that this is what they do before scratching your ankles to shreds, but maybe they only do that to me because I start flailing my legs around… That'll be something to investigate later.

'He seemed to notice somethin' strange about the necklace, which ain't surprisin' considering it were on a cat, so he bent down to take a look at it. But when he 'ad hold of the pendant, the cat pressed its paw on it and- and it just collapsed,' the man gapes, emphasising his disbelief by motioning to the spot where the black fur pile had been bundled.

I glance confusedly at Potter, a look which he returns, prompting to the witness, 'and my brother?'

Blowing a black puff of soot from his sweeper, the man looks down and clears his throat – a loud, croaky rumble – showing his first sign of hesitation. 'He fell back, chokin' an' gasping. The chain of the necklace snapped an' he took it with 'im. When he finally took a proper breath, a ball of light came from his mouth,' the chimney sweep whispers, voice growing faint with hints of fright, and worry from the nervous, some even angry, looks from the other paintings. 'As the light floated away, it grew, getting fainter as it got bigger. It turned into the Bloody Baron-'

'Oh that is quite enough!' the wigged lady shrieks, her frilly fan now lowered to show her discontented, bitterly scrunched face. 'I have had it with your nonsense!'

Before we can ask what is going on, voices encase the air, blasting from the frames like speakers, yells about "it's true, you weren't there" and "poppycock" and so on.

The ragged boy in the Victorian market waves for us to follow him as he scampers across the bottom row of canvases, panting when he stops in an empty landscape of farmland, around the far corner from the eruptions of "true!" and "false!".

Hands on his crouched knees, he looks up at us, explaining hushedly, 'that bloke, your brother,' he nods to Al, 'once the ghost went away, he pocketed the necklace and started taking all us paintings down.'

We lean towards him to hear him over the commotion, and I have a sudden realisation, 'and he switched you all around with paintings from all over the school!'

Potter begins, 'how-'

'That painting of Helga Hufflepuff and her sister is supposed to be outside the library and that drunken old guy – I know, there are a lot of those – is usually a few paintings along from the fat lady. I remember from when we stalked the Gryffindor common room, remember, after you made me climb the Astro-'

'Yes, yes, I'm sorry, I get it,' he silences me, turning back to the boy, who's pulled an apple from his pocket and has been munching on it whilst watching us in amusement.

He laughs sympathetically through a bite of apple, 'girls, eh? Yap for days, they could.'

'I know right,' Potter sighs.

'You know what I know?' I laugh along with them, 'how to wash oil paints away,' I snap seriously, eyes manically grinning in contrast with my firm line of lips.

Believing my threat to be empty, the boy shrugs and chucks the apple core into the ploughed fields behind him. 'Anyway, I ducked behind a butchers cart and Pat, the sweep, hid in a chimney. We figured the bloke wouldn't have the time to swap us all around, so he left the ones that didn't have people in 'em, Pat and I included. As far as we can tell, we're the only ones left in the corridor who saw what went on. There could be others here, but everyone's keepin' it hushed 'cause their scared,' he explains, grubby hands in pockets.

'What happened after he left?' Potter asks with his elegant brow furrowed.

The boy shrugs nonchalantly, again, and says, 'he took the last of the paintings downstairs under an invisibility cloak – gimme one of those instead of livin' on a wall for all eternity any day.' He gazes sadly at the stream cracking through the field before resuming his telling, 'then you came along in your fancy dress and checked on the cat. You left holding your head and looking quite out of it-'

'See! Your hangover wasn't my fault,' Potter grins, sticking his tongue out.

'Yeah… Drinking was totally why I was in that state…' I mumble, only slightly sarcastically for want of not diverging the subject to the true cause.

He seems not to notice, looking away down the corridor, not prying.

Still yet to grow tired of our bickering, the market boy picks up from my looking like a drunken mess, informing us, 'people who believed Pat and mines' tale of what happened seem to think it was the cat that made you go all woozy.'

I suppose I was affected by these goings-on, in a sense, seeing as it did give the build up of the panic attack a final punt, but let's not give Potter anymore fuel for ripping the piss.

'After lookin' out the window, you 'obbled off, muttering to yourself about somethin' or other, and a while later the cat just suddenly sprang to its paws and scurried away, down the corridor. And that was that – the most interesting part of the year so far for us – done,' he shrugs, again, again.

So boys have always been irritatingly aloof.

The noise around the corner settles, the paintings seemingly having grown tired of pointlessly arguing to pass the time. I can still hear those damn sheep though.

I smile kindly – shut up, I am capable of such a thing – to the boy, 'thanks for letting us know everything, and thank "Pat",' I point awkwardly around the other side of the wall, towards the sweep's wooden frame, 'for us.'

'What's your name?' the towering Giraffe-tree asks him.

'Chauncey,' he beams, brightening his grimy face below his dishevelled mop of sandy hair.

I wave as we start to wander away, promising, 'well if we ever need some help, we'll come back for you.'

Chauncey grins and salutes before leaping over the wire fence and vanishing behind the rustic golden frame. I don't think I have ever seen a kid so ecstatic (and I saw Marie receive her Hogwarts letter). All of those bright ideas – a bubble teeming with imagination that can't burst because it's stuck on a canvas – and we have given them a connection to the open air. It's a sad thought, that these people are forever just in our background. To make friends, and to have a chance at being involved in something bigger, both figuratively and physically, must be great for the little market boy. Perhaps he'll stop being so bored and stop shrugging, which I'd love, not only for him but for my sanity seeing as I already have to deal with Smirky.

Speaking of whom, Potter proposes, 'so the next wisest step would be to confront the Baron?'

As we weave in and out of the light streaming through the tall, arching windows, the shadows of the patterns on them ripple cuts through his planes of porcelain cheekbone.

'And say what?' I laugh, '"hey, I was wondering why you were inside my brother. Do you do that often?"'

He breathes a laugh with a dimple playing on his cheek as his smile bursts brightly, then quickly falters. 'That is… beyond creepy,' he smirks half heartedly.

This isn't right. Potter lives for the art of smirking. Where's his arrogant posture and the punch-inducing glint in his eye? I prefer it when I have an excuse to fling my limbs at his face.

He shoves his hands in his pockets, shrugging his shoulders up. 'I have something to ask you about all of this. You're probably going to hit me, but…' He glances at me unsurely then proceeds sternly, 'I didn't quite hear what you muttered back there about your condition when you came across the cat during the dance, but I know that you were sober, as you were when I saw you afterwards, and you can't have been harmed by any of the weird stuff that went on because you hadn't even reached the cat at that point. You were looking quite distressed in the hall as well.'

His eyes narrow like they did that night, outside the castle doors in the brisk cold; not angrily, but as though trying to solve me like a puzzle. I know better than to think he's concerned, but I also know I'm still not going to like this question that's coming, either.

We pause as he turns to look at me, green on poo water (still not letting that go – ever), and continues, 'you don't have to tell me what made you take that ill turn, I wouldn't be surprised if it were just from walking around in those shoes, but-'

'Speaking of which, have you seen them anywhere? Because I can't find them and my cousin wants them back for her wedding or something…' I interrupt, trying, feebly, to change the subject.

'It's fine, I get it. You don't have to tell me, I was just curious,' he expresses, pressing his lips in a slight smile before walking again.

After a confused, nagging silence, I mention, 'no, but really, she does need them back; her wedding's in two days.'

His smirk slips back into its usual place. I never thought I'd be happy to see it.

Then, as we head to Ancient Runes, he starts to crack up, snickering, trying and failing to compose himself.

Eventually I give in, 'what?! What is it?'

'She's not getting those shoes back,' he chuckles, shaking his head at the floor, as though remembering something.

I grind my teeth and puff my hair out of my face. 'Care to tell me why instead of giggling like a toddler?' I kindly suggest.

He looks me in the eye to relish in my exasperation and displeasure. Jogging ahead slightly, so to avoid any potential harm I may wish to inflict upon him, he reminisces, 'you know how you got really drunk?'

I nod with a clenched jaw and a forced, mocking smile.

'Yeah, well you threw them in a flaming pumpkin, yelling something about a "sacrificing ritual for the demon fruit"?' he retells in bewildered amusement.

Potter pulls his robes up to hide his face as a precaution for my anger, but startles like a puppy in a storm when I double over, cackling. He screws up his stupid, too-pretty face in disbelief. 'That's it? You're not going to skin me to make new ones?' he raises.

'Like I care about some shoes. The rich cow can get fifty new pairs in seconds!' I shout, causing Potter to cover my mouth again as we hurry past an open, laughter-filled classroom and up the moving staircases, which decide to take us in the opposite direction of our ideal destination.

Having hastily removed his hand from my face, knowing full well that I will not respond kindly, Potter slows his pace down, thank Merlin, and we come to a halt outside the library.

Just when I'm receiving a grateful rest, the bell chimes a musical clang which informs us that we only have ten minutes to get all the way up to the sixth floor, at the other side of the castle.

Listen to it go, it just keeps chiming and dinging and donging and ringing. 'Stop gloating you big, fat… bell,' I shout up to the echoes.

A flick of black catches my eye and I whip around in its direction, still trying to push my lungs back into place.

'Nice one,' Potter sighs as he starts for the stairs. 'You coming?' he asks, turning to find me lying on a cat. _The_ cat.

The bell perpetually bangs on and on, like the Gran that can twaddle on for hours about trying on a pair of trousers at some shop, or my sister, always. My remaining patience withers and dies, painfully, as the cat starts incessantly mewing and hissing and whining.

'CAN YOU NOT?' I holler, drawing all fearing eyes to the girl grappling with a cat outside the library. Seriously, even Madam Pince is looking at me funny and she's the one who gapes creepily at people through the bookshelves – I would at least do it to their faces!

Suddenly, someone voices my name above me and my arms automatically loosen on the fleeing feline, for this is a voice I've been longing to here all week.

Upon peering up, I meet deep brown eyes behind flatteringly large, black-rimmed lenses, above the dark, puffy remnants of many sleepless nights. Gleaming badge, crisp tie and robes; all in place and as it had been last week, before the night I was left wondering, to think the worst.

The whole week passes over me, confusing me with all endured emotions. But, of course, the first thing I notice about these missing and missed eyes is that they've been crying.


	13. The Potters & the Presenter

My Sixth Year: Parkinson, Pressure & Mr Al Potter

Harry Potter: Next Generation Fan Fiction

**A/N: Another chapter, woo!  
I apologise to any new readers who attempted to read chapter 4, 'Fan-Witching & Spy-Witching', and got one of the chapters from my other fan fiction instead. I had been editing and replacing them all and must have accidentally selected the wrong chapter, so my bad XD I'm very sorry, and the real chapter is now back in place!  
Also, I have started to note chapter progress on my profile and predicted update dates, so if you're ever curious of such things you can find them there.  
Anyways, thank you very much for the follows, favourites and reviews! They make my day!  
Please do review if you enjoy this to let me know why, because I had a lot of fun writing this chapter and love getting feedback! **

**Chapter 13: The Potters & the Presenter**

I am an awful person.

I'm not starting today's clumsy adventure of embarrassment with any silly wisecracks, but with cold, hard fact. I'm terrible.

When Adrian went missing, paranoia had sunk in. I was thinking of all of these crazy things I could have done to upset him. I was entirely self-involved. Time didn't lessen this effect, if anything, it strengthened it, growing new layers every day to cocoon me in my own hysteria; a bubble for myself and my own ludicrous worries.

He didn't show up to meals – 'have I driven him away? Is he so upset that he can't eat?'

He didn't attend classes – 'was he so hurt by me not finding and consoling him that he doesn't want to see me anymore?'

All week he was nowhere to be seen. I was worried and I too was upset, but not as much as I am now. I was so completely wired into this routine of dazedly looking around for him, but not properly committing myself to finding him because of these selfish thoughts prodding at me.

The night of the Halloween dance was just the beginning of the worst period of Adrian's life. It was a night for me to be there for him, for he didn't need me at that point, he needed my comfort.

And here I am, a further week later, in the shower, still thinking about me and how I tie into this sorrowful knot, while Adrian is not thinking of himself, but of his parents, who passed away on the night I wondered.

My anger at myself creeps constantly up my spine, hitting every nerve in its path, as I think of the twinges of such a control-loosing emotion I'd felt that night. Beneath my worry I had felt abandoned, but now all resentment claws at only me for feeling such a way when he was so fragile with pieces already broken. I may not have been aware of these sorrowing happenings at that time, but that doesn't lessen the guilt encasing me.

To make matters worse, and they do get worse, after apologising to me he'd cut the remaining threads holding me together:

'_I'm really sorry for leaving you like that. I just went to talk to my Gran, then she told me and I broke down. I couldn't face anyone seeing me like that and I needed some time alone, but now I'm ready to get back into the swing of things. School should serve as a decent distraction, but what I really need now are friends to pull me through. Could you be one of them?_'

I'd accepted, hugged him, dismissed his apology and stood blankly outside of the library, missing my next class, watching him walk away, and feeling everything within me slowly sink down with the word "friends"; a word still struggling to fit into place in my tiredly racing mind.

As I bitterly wrench my hair dry, clothe myself and head down to the Great Hall for breakfast, ghosts leaving students' bodies has never seemed to be so petty and insignificant.

Enchanted banners string and plaster the entrance hall in gaudy reds and greens. I pass an ill-tempered Professor Sinistra who is screaming at students to remove a banner screaming, literally, "After a few classes we'll be kicking Gryffindor's asses!"

I take a deep breath to bury my negative thoughts on this day of responsibility. I bounce into the hall with new found enthusiasm, for today is supposed to be great day for Heidi Dino-Davis, despite how I feel. It's part of my job to be overly happy and to make others feel so, but I don't know why Professor Weasley gave it to me, the sarcastic Slytherin, instead of a Hufflepuff. Still, I must compose myself and deliver.

'Come now! Let us not mourn the morn, people!' I belt out to the entire hall, making even the gathered drops of condensation on the bewitched ceiling quiver from the reverberations. 'For today is- drum roll please,' I nod to a Hufflepuff girl who meekly clangs her spoon against her bowl of porridge before I announce, with jazz hands, of course, 'GRYFFINDOR VS. SLYTHERIN: the first match of the Inter-House Quidditch Cup, 2022!'

I receive eye rolls in their grumpy, sleep-deprived hundreds, but people applaud nonetheless, the Quidditch teams excluded, appearing nervously pale with their food pushed away from them.

'And why am I pointing out the obvious and forcing my voice upon you? Because I'll be presenting today's madness!' I declare, cupping my hand to my ear and grinning triumphantly when the protesting groans reach it. I beam at them all as I strut down the hall, adding, 'well get used to it because I'll be your commentator for the whole season!'

Once they moan again in their early morning zombie language, I comment, 'oh it's nothing, I'm just happy to entertain!'

I cast a quick _soronus_ and skip up to Ryan Zabini, the only Quidditch player in the room who looks prepared and determined, with my wand poised at my neck. I clamp my hand down on his shoulder, not even considering how flat his build could squish me if he were to reflexively react. Fortunately he doesn't, instead sighing, 'here we go,' as I start my interviewing for the game, wasting people's time like presenters do.

'Who do you think is going to win?' I question him in an enthusiastic, deep voice that booms from wall to wall thanks to my spell.

Once I flip the wand tip over to his neck, he stares up at me confoundedly. 'Slytherin?' he answers incredulously, adjusting his emerald Quidditch robes.

'And why do you think that?' I pry with a swish of my hair and a dazzling smile to my audience, who are only amused by my antics because no one has ever had the gumption to attempt interrogation at this early hour, at full volume, in front of everyone. Well of course I'd be the first to try it!

The Slytherin Quidditch Captain gawks at me with disdain and swivels off the bench, out of the open hall doors.

'Slytherin is confident, but grumpy!' I conclude to the other students, who clearly wouldn't have been able to grasp this themselves.

Upon my valid noting, I spot Al, Scorpius and Alex traipsing into the hall from practise, hair plastered to their faces and dripping down their pink noses, with their robes sluggishly slapping around their legs. The best part of this, for me, is not their discomfort or the fact that they're going to have to go out there again later for the game, but it is, by far, Potter's disgruntled grimace as he runs his hands through his soaked hair, trying to salvage any of its usual demeanour to no avail.

Giddily seizing the chance to annoy him, as ever, I skip up the table to where they've taken to sitting and bring my wand to my neck once again. 'It's raining, it's pouring, everyone would rather be snoring; it's really not the day for a game of such extravagance today, folks!' I voice to the majority, before turning to Potter who is waiting with bored, bated breath, knowing I'm up to something. 'So the weather's terrible, all the waffles are gone, it's Friday the thirteenth and your hair is a soggy mop, how is the Slytherin team fairing?' I jauntily ask.

'Fantastic,' he grumbles.

'You lost to Gryffindor last year, thanks to your brother. Do you feel ready to fight back this year?' I hold my wand out to Potter.

'Well we have Alex's brother and myself, so we're just fine, no need to worry about us, we'll do splendidly, go question someone else now, off you pop!' he hurriedly splurges, with a sarcastic smile, shooing me with his hands.

I head over to the Gryffindor table, rounding up his dismissal, 'the Smirkster is soaked and has been driven slightly insane by some evil genius, but is certain that Slytherin can take the win!'

Before I reach the cluster of red robes at the end of the next table all turns momentarily black, accompanied by a pungent odour of rotting vegetables, moss, and animal droppings. I receive a sharp poke to the chest with a cold smack to the face.

I squint one eye open, to find the stone floor underneath me and laughing, curious and concerned faces peering down at me.

I groan, 'ow, my boob,' tugging my wand from the sensitive area in which it tried to impale.

Hagrid frantically apologises, hoisting me up by the back of my robes a little too vigorously, leaving me winded. 'Sorry,' he repeats. 'You need the watch where yer going though, Heidi,' he adds, thumping down the hall to the staff table.

'Or you could not suddenly bound through doors and bowl over innocent Quidditch commentators. I have a reputation to uphold,' I mutter stuffily.

A patience-grating voice whispers in my ear, while his attire snails puddles along the floor, 'so the weather's terrible, all the waffles are gone, you painfully graced the floor with your face and tried to cast a spell on your cleavage. How do you think Dino is fairing?' Potter smirks at me before leaving the hall, calling over his shoulder, 'at least you get to comment on your favourite person for a good few hours. Of course that time all depends on how slowly he drags out the process of finding the Snitch.'

'Cheeky sod threatening me in third person,' I seethe, sulking over to Keren and Laura in hope of food and thinking about how many insults I could fit into those few hours.

…

I don't see what's so great about Quidditch. You just sit here, gathering icicles and trying to decipher which of the zooming dots has the ball, fifteen billion feet above you. Plus, my arse is wet from this seat, so I'm most definitely not teeming with excitement, unlike Professor Lupin, face half red, half green, who is mercilessly drumming on his seat, causing Professor Weasley's face to shake and get lost amongst his fiery curls.

So, the pitch is a human freezer, I am surrounded by old know-it-alls in my little podium and I am expected to be able to inform the crowd of the players movements when I'm just as clueless as they are.

Professor Weasley says I should give a quick report before the game starts, announcing the weather conditions, the key rules, the state of the teams and other dull facts that no one is going to care about.

The last of the students, mostly Gryffindors, file into the pitch like a trail of ants returning to their hive as I mull over various points I could mention in my commentary. Although I have too much confidence for my own good, I can feel the tingling, knotting sensation of nerves start to form. I fidget, scratching at the words carved into the rain-slick podium in front on me. I scan the writhing sea of red and gold and silver and green in the stands, the faces nothing but splodges of skin at this distance. The chatter of the crowd and pretentious chuckling of the professors merge together and rise with my internal churning, a daunting noise revelling in and thriving on my nerves. I push down the feeling, deepening my breathing, convincing myself that I will settle into this commentating malarkey with the aid of insulting Potter and my "Davis-ness" – and I certainly do intend to bring the Davis-ness.

As my fingers idly trace over an engraving of "Lee loves Angelina" beside the score counter, my attention is brought to the stretch of green below by the restlessness of the crowd breaking to make way for grateful cheers. Madam Hooch, slivery hair mimicking the clouds, marches onto the pitch with the case containing the required equipment. She is closely followed by a troop of red robes, while green determinedly strides from my side of the pitch, brooms in hands.

The players mount their brooms, some grim with purpose, others thrilled with the encouragement of the animated crowd. James, purple shadowed eyes visible even from this distance, shakes Ryan Zabini's hand, the ebony Captain appearing resolute, while the other looks darkly indifferent – a trait not of the norm for the cheeky Gryffindor Captain who lives for Quidditch.

After watching the routine play out before me for several mildly amused minutes, I notice Professor Weasley staring from beside me, nodding vigorously and then shaking his head, muttering when I finally startle in understanding. I should be speaking right now.

I pull the golden talky-thing (am I professional or am I professional?) up to my mouth and hurriedly proclaim, 'sorry for not starting sooner folks. I'm sure you would have loved to hear more from fabulous me, but I'm afraid you've missed out.' With a pointed, frustrated look from the headmaster, I get to the point, 'so the winds are fairly still, the rain has stopped for the most part and it is so cold that I cannot feel my left butt cheek,' I announce to the _entire student body_, 'but nevertheless both teams are looking pretty ready for another boring- I mean thrilling game to start the season. The only new addition to the teams this year is Luciana Malfoy, Gryffindor's little blonde trooper, as Seeker, up against that Potter guy who nobody cares about,' I state, quickly tugging the microphone from Professor Weasley's fleeting grasp and winking at Potter for his distanced eye roll.

I quickly state the main rules to remember (no, I did not make any ball jokes) and then Madam Hooch takes stance in the pitch centre and throws the Quaffle into the air, causing the Bludgers, Snitch and players to launch into flight in a blur of robes. After a few dazed seconds, I stumble back into commentary, 'oh- oh- and we're off! Look at them go like… amateur superheroes.' With yet another warning look from Professor Weasley, I assert my attention to the players' actions, noting, 'and it is Alex Zabini, the Zab-Zab, who has the Quaffle, after whoever last had it, I wasn't really paying attention, but when do I ever?! That's right, I'm one of those people here to stop you from actually enjoying the game by pointing out your flaws and changing everything to be about myself-' another death glare from the ginger professor; 'but let's get back to the game! Zab-Zab passed to Blondie, who swiftly avoided a Bludger thanks to Oscar Pucey, who I have dubbed Ozzy. Blondie now passes to that freakishly tall third year, who's name has escaped me, but let's call him Simon! Simon weaves around Darius Peters, the Big D- no maybe not, give me time for that nickname. He heads for the hoops, which, when you think about it, just look like really awkward monocles. Simon throws the Quaffle – THE LEATHER BULLET IS IN FLIGHT, and- oh, no, James, Captain Curls, intercepts the thingy-thing and passes it to thingamajig and then the other one does the thing- no- no- then- WILL YOU ALL STOP MOVING SO FAST?!' I take a break from my frantic screaming to pant for a few seconds.

While I cough up my lungs, Laura beats a Bludger away from Scorpius, sending it vicariously soaring towards Fred, who passes the Quaffle back to James. The Bludger hits Fred. Joanna, the Beater who could have saved him if she wasn't so focused on covering James, celebrates along with the rest of the Gryffindors as James scores the first goal of the game. I pull myself up from my heap on the wet floor to see her face slowly sink as she goes to hi-five Fred and he can't move his arm to meet hers.

'HEIDI!' Professor Weasley barks beside me.

'And James scores the first goal! Ten points to Gryffindor!' I bellow into the microphone, pulling the lever on their side of the score counter with a bright _ding_, causing the middle zero to roll up to a one. 'But this has come with a price, seemingly, as their Chaser, ginger Frodo, has been hit on the arm by a Bludger, courtesy of Slytherin's Lozzy Pucey. See what I did there – Ozzy and Lozzy? I'm so funny,' I chuckle, curiously eyeing Madam Hooch and Fred down on the ground.

After a few minutes, with some device sturdily attaching his injured arm to his broom, the game resumes as Fred takes to the sky again, his locked arm steering whilst his catching and throwing arm waves open, and Ryan Zabini throws the Quaffle back into play.

Slytherin attempts goal after goal, to be stopped by James. I may not be the biggest Quidditch fan, but I know the rules, thanks to Laura and my little brother. It looks to me as though James has been Stooging (sneaking into the scoring area when there is already another chaser there) and he has been snatching the ball away every time it nears the hoops, when it is only okay for the Keeper to be in contact with it. He's been subtle about it though; Madam Hooch hasn't given any penalties yet. But he's definitely made many fouls. I swear he's even stopped some goals for his own team.

But then, while Darius Peters is distracted by Ezra pelting Bludgers away from him, Alex Zabini whistles past and flings the Quaffle right through Gryffindor's middle hoop. After nearly giving up all hope, the spectators in green roar, although they stop quickly to cover their ears because someone, somewhere, is screaming into a microphone… I know right? Who would be stupid enough to do that – I don't know.

'TEN POINTS TO SLYTHERIN. ZAB-ZAB'S ZA-BEST! ZAB-ZAB'S ZA-BEST!' I cheer as Keren's brother circles the pitch triumphantly and the chant spreads to the crowd. I'm such a trend setter! I just wish the whole wearing your pyjamas inside-out to class thing would have caught on. Some people are so close-minded!

…

After I can't bear to think how long, I peel my damp face off of the podium to announce a penalty goal for Gryffindor in a completely non-bored, non-biased monotone. That's their fourth goal, but the scores are merely twenty-nil to Gryffindor, because they lost twenty points due to James Cobbing (shoving with his elbows) his brother on numerous occasions – despite him being a Seeker, not a rivalling Chaser – and Slytherin lost our precious ten points, much to Alex's dissatisfaction, due to minor, accidental Stooging, hence why Gryffindor just scored again – GOD DAMMIT BLONDIE! I swear that boy nearly got hit by a Bludger because he just hovered there, admiring himself in its shiny surface as it shot towards him.

However, as Blondie passes to Simon, narrowly skimming a Bludger from Ezra, he scores in the left hoop, making up for the points.

'That's ten points back to Slytherin!' I hoot, far less enthusiastically than my first celebration. They were extremely lucky to gain my interest in the first place, but I care not for the game any longer. I voice my complaints across the field, 'hey, Potter! Smirky! Fancy catching the Snitch any time soon? Now I can't feel either of my butt cheeks and I need _food_!'

He appears to pay no attention to my words, squinting through the grey, a little way above the match. Then, suddenly, he pulls his broom handle upwards and zips into the lowering fog.

Good. I can almost taste the mash potato.

Meanwhile, the players are still fruitlessly whizzing around below the furling clouds. The Quaffle dances from Chaser to Chaser and the Bludgers bowl around like me, the uncoordinated one that can't control their footing and always seems to injure people, and the song has no end. This is also just as boring as a Ball. I feel like the bitter hostess who puts on a bubbly smile at the beginning, but ends up inhaling the entire liquor supply and starts yelling obscenities whilst lying in the middle of the floor. I'm lucky to still be at this podium, microphone in hand, judging by the many enraged lunges from Professor Weasley. Though, I'm not sure I would call it lucky, seeing as I'd rather be curled up by the fire in the common room, reading. Even listening to Keren ramble on about how soft Louis' lips are is fractionally better than this. At least my arse wouldn't be numb; I can't even tell if I'm sitting down anymore.

The only minimally intriguing aspect of sitting here, watching this play out and dully narrating the teams' movements is that it's like a really long episode of one of those soap operas that are so terrible you can't stop watching – "will Maurice and Angela get back together? Well they're both complete and utter idiots and their actors are abysmal, but I'm going to watch to find out anyway." We even have the creepily quiet siblings, Darius and Blake, who always turn out to be psychopathic murderers.

In today's episode of _Hogwarts Hotties_:

What is going on with James? Will he and his brother ever reconcile? Who will Joanna choose, James or Fred? Will Albus ever realise his undying love for Laura and be a good boy and let Heidi get her money for chocolate? Will Scorpius ever stop gazing at himself? And, most crucially, will Heidi ever get to _pee_?! Seriously, I'm dying here, and the whole numb butt thing really isn't helping! You so wanted to know that.

Yes, this is most definitely Friday the thirteenth.

But, then something unexpected happens, suddenly; too quick for anyone to have predetermined; something no one would have wanted to predict, no matter how infuriating the guy can be.

Above, Potter and Luciana burst from the grey, swiftly zooming in unison after a little golden ball with whirring wings. Below, James is slicing through the air, towards the goals, the Quaffle under his arm. Ryan is fleeing from a Bludger. He could score, it would be painfully easy, but he notices his brother, leather gloved hand outstretched, the Snitch almost in reach, Luciana on his tail.

He lets the Quaffle fall. He pelts upwards. He climbs and he climbs. Al notices, but doesn't believe the Chaser's, his brother's, actions will amount to anything. However, when James doesn't stop it is Al who is _de_mounted.

Jaw slackened, microphone swinging in my loose grip, I can do nothing but watch in astonishment as my Potter pal tumbles from the clouds to the ground, knowing that this time he is not joking.


	14. The Mermaids' Prayer

My Sixth Year: Parkinson, Pressure & Mr Al Potter

Harry Potter: Next Generation Fan Fiction

**A/N: Sup my homie-howdy! Here's the update, right on time.  
I listened to Bon Iver's self-titled album when writing this and I really think it helps set the mood if you'd like to read along with it (also, it's just fantastical).  
Thank you very much for the reviews, follows and favourites! I really appreciate your support and I love hearing from you :3  
This one is different to the usual light-hearted chapters, but it is very important ;)  
Now I shall end my ramblings. Enjoy! :D**

**Chapter 14: The Mermaids' Prayer**

Breaking News: Albus Severus Potter is an idiot – a big, smirking, "oh I think I'll just fall to my death now" idiot – but you already knew that.

Yes, James may have caused his fall, this time (I'm not forgetting his stupid prank that ended with me demonically chasing him all over the grounds), but he still could have grabbed his broom and righted himself, right? After all, Laura does always speak of his "awesome Seeker skills", which is usually my cue to think _then marry him you must_, and evilly giggle to myself about my chocolate prize. But is him keeping himself safe really too much for me to ask for? No, I do not care about him. He's _Potter_. Yet, if he were to have died or more or less so, I know that I would have found some way to blame myself and I, alone, would have gotten even more involved in all of this James business to pathetically ease my conscience. But I don't know how I would have _felt_. I know how I felt when I saw him drop, slowly but truly, like a tear. I had no time to be terrified or worried or to process what was happening; I was numb, frozen in fight or flight, but nevertheless I did something at that moment that has been troubling me profusely.

Like a bird shot in flight, his own brother behind the trigger, Al had slowed, fallen back and plummeted in a tangle of green, gaining speed, until two hands and a wand shot out, carrying _Arresto Momentum_ through the air, keeping the pitiful bundle from impact. Two hands belonging to Professor Lupin and Professor Weasley. The wand belonging to me.

Even though my aid was not needed, for the professors had both done the same, I had automatically lifted my wand and whispered the spell to save him. Him being _Potter_. Basically, I voluntarily saved Al Potter's life and it has been making me think various things short of 'WHAT THE HELL?' Obviously, it is a good thing that I saved someone's life. No matter how often he makes me want to climb up Ravenclaw Tower and gauge my eyes out with the point, I would never wish death upon him, nor would I to anyone, but the thoughts and ideas behind my actions in those blind, slow seconds are really scaring me, hence why I have been bombarding myself with questions like how I would have felt if no one's hand or wand had arisen and no one had spoken the incantation.

In other words, I have been torturing myself, analysing every moment we've spent together and even asking myself the horrific question 'is Potter my friend?' I may have vomited – just a little bit. I mean, we are talking about several days of wondering if I care about Potter. Surely one does not simply _care _for an arrogant, belittling (literally, he's way too tall and I don't appreciate it), sarcastic twat? Am I going completely insane? I know I have always been mad – why be normal when you can be fun? – but am I going completely, mental asylum worthy insane? Oh dear Merlin it's happened, hasn't it? I knew Potter would be my undoing!

Though, in his defence( something I should not be granting him), the whole Adrian situation hasn't been helping. I have been to the library with him since the game, and he was really quiet, which is understandable, but I feel like I should be doing more to help and show him that I care despite my handicap of being bonkers. I want to be there for him, but it hurts, a lot; this idea of friendship and the eased manner in which he had proposed it has, I don't know, sliced my insides into ribbons somewhat? It makes me dread if he actually realised my intentions were more than that in the first place. Was my potato message not a sufficiently romantic gesture?

I actually let one tear slip last night. My pillow had caught it, soaking up the evidence, but then I'd felt more angry at my weakness than anything. I need to be strong for him to be able to rely on me and that's something that I am far from right now, for completely pathetic reasons. Henceforth, I have decided to spend the occasional study period with Adrian, but to not completely return to his side until I feel that I will be able to do so well enough; until I can get over my feelings for him.

Wow, I feel childish.

So seeing as being Adrian's friend is not an option for tonight's agenda, I look forward to reading the new mystery novel I got from the library and cursing at the cats that satanically circle my bed every night.

I finish my stew and potatoes, my most consoling and trustworthy friends, and I look up to find a smirk plastered on pale, unnaturally elegant yet brooding face, with stupidly green eyes and annoyingly perfect wavy hair hanging in front of them. I'm going to clarify that this is no longer Keren. She's now sitting next to the cult leader of the Git-y Association of Gits (also known as GAG), looking way too happy. I know that smile. I know what comes after that smile. I hate that smile.

They're both at it, modelling the smirk and girly grin that I loathe. They both carry meanings that I equally despise.

With a jaded, prognostic sigh, I push my gravy smeared dinner plate away from me and dismissively reject, 'no,' to the smirk-er.

'Yes. We agreed on tonight,' he recalls confidently, arrogantly, egotistically, irritatingly, aggravatingly, infuriatingly-

Oh I hate him. I hate what he's done to me.

And here comes the meaning behind Keren's giggles: 'to do who- I mean what?' she chimes, wagging her eyebrows up and down at me.

No. Both of you: no. NO.

I ignore her, casually bending my very metal, very solid fork from the willpower needed. I reason to Potter, 'that was before I ate ten times my body weight.'

'Well your discomfort is your own fault then,' he retorts.

I save the git's life and what do I get? Sass. Downright SASS I say!

I gaze longingly at Laura's ice cream, while she charms cherries into a hovering line that dances around her head and along the table.

'But me missing dessert is all yours, so look forward to my wrath,' I warn. With a cock of my head, a flash of a forced smile and a swish of my robes, I drag my feet unwillingly over to the grand doors.

Potter strides in my wake with the first eye roll of the night underway.

Laura waves, leaving the Keren wink and chirp, 'have fun!'

Yes, "fun" is the word.

I suppose, far beneath my complete and utter disgust, I should by glad that she thinks my interests lie with Potter, as it means she probably still believes I'm betting on Scorpius for Laura, who, unbeknownst to her, is already spending his closet time with Rose.

As petty as this bet may seem, it makes for a good distraction. I could do with a challenge to focus on (NEWTS? Meh, they can wait), rather than my guilt and these conflicting men-children. I much preferred it when they had cooties. Potter still has cooties. Shut up, I'm mature.

I slump along the entrance all, trailing behind Potter, who has taken his usual, so-called superior place ahead of me. When we reach the stone steps down to the dungeons, I whisper, 'seeing as you have decided to so selfishly keep me from ice cream, and therefore happiness, for this, I am presuming you know what you are going to say to him?'

Our footsteps make muffled taps which mutter around the tunnelling staircase with the crackling and flickering of the torches. The sticks of golden flame dimly illuminate our path, but don't reach the spaces between the stones, leaving them to appear as deep cracks wrenching slowly open, and the bottom edges of the walls to look like dark, dusty crevices.

'And why do you assume that I shall be the first to speak?' he raises, his arched eyebrows eligible in his aloof posture and drawling tone.

I glare at the back of his head incredulously, enlightening him, 'well, I don't know, because the one he was seen _emitting_ from was _your_ brother and this actually has nothing to do with me?'

Abruptly, he spins to face me, careful to stay on the narrow step. 'Then why are you still here?' he demands.

The question and his accusing manner catch me off guard. I open my mouth and close it, my swallowing visible by the shifting of shadow on my neck. I have no feasible answer, not even for myself. I guess this is the question of the week, you know, despite me having saved his life. I should probably stop bringing that up for the sake of my remaining sanity.

Composing my features, I straighten up and give the only reason I can think of: 'because I'm curious.'

I push past him and continue down the steps. He follows. The rest of the walk is quiet.

Our purpose beckons us around the corner from the familiar Potions classroom and straight past the wall in which we would usually halt at, bicker over who has the correct password and enter through. We find ourselves passing the last lit torch on the intricately carved walls, beyond our sense of comfort, to the black, chipping gate no one opens.

It is locked, but no magic is needed. Potter firmly presses his side to the gate and pushes. The rusty lock crumbles and the gate creaks open, threatening to snap from its hinges, each tremor sharp against the dusty silence, announcing visitors to the only occupant behind it.

Potter creeps past its groans and I follow hesitantly.

As soon as the beautifully daunting architecture of the corridor reaches the gate frame, it erodes and is left washed of its colour. The walls are rough and hazardous, as though no one could be bothered to shape them in any way, or, more likely, they didn't deem those within the walls worthy of such attention to detail. The disintegrating stones of the floor have left it powdery and cadaverous, like an aged face, one of tortured circumstances. Rough, brown nails line the walls, spidering cracks through the bumpy surface.

We turn the corner, admiring the cobwebs, dust and other luxurious features, to find rusted, cold bars of metal, separated by three faded stone walls. We leave the remaining golden light of the torch behind us, shadows casting over our faces as soon as we turn, for this was where the darkness used to begin for inhabitants of the dungeons.

Now they hold only one prisoner. And he's here by choice.

Ghostly pale in the dull light casting from the miniscule cell windows, Potter looks down at me, for once, not condescendingly, but for reassurance.

I smirk, pushing him forward, to which he sneers indignantly. His sudden steps echo like gunshots through the dungeons. We freeze. Still, our host doesn't greet his guests.

We cautiously edge along the wall, peering into the first cell.

Nothing but a slither of grey light on worn stone.

As we swivel our gaze around the cell, noticing the jagged, black, glistening rock of a cavern through the slot for a window, we shuffle along towards the next. Musing to myself about putting spiders in Potter's hair to distract him from me escaping to dessert, I turn to the next cell.

Large, manic, grey eyes stare right into my face.

I yelp, leaping back, right into Al. Grimacing when I stumble on his foot, he steadies me by the waist, nudging me forward and grinning in amusement when he finds Peeves cackling behind the bars.

The poltergeist flicks away his nonexistent tears of laughter. He claps his hands. 'I haven't been able to pull that one for centuries!' he squawks. Hovering on his front, right hand to left elbow, head resting in left hand, he coos, 'so what are you two being locked up for? Canoodling, hmm?'

I shudder, declaring, 'I think I might test that theory of whether you can vomit on a ghost or not.'

Potter shakes head. He leans towards the bars and whispers, 'she's secretly in love with me.'

I hit him around the back of the head with a huff, crossing my arms and turning my back on him.

Some things just aren't even right to joke about.

He whines like an injured puppy, his brow furrowing and lower lip pouting, rubbing the assaulted spot.

I roll my eyes, muttering, 'Merlin's baggy y-fronts, it was just a tap!'

'Naughty words! Naughty, naughty! Tut, tut!' Peeves reprimands, wagging his finger while he passes through the cell bars. 'Heidi-weidi and Potty-wotty in the dungeons being naughty!' he sings, before giggles rack his stumpy, silvery body.

I minutely study Potter and gag.

'Thanks,' he sarcastically smiles with a hand to his heart.

Before vanishing through the rough, faded wall, Peeves turns suddenly calm, respectful even, announcing, 'you have visitors, Baron.'

Potter and I scuff along to the last cell, powdered rock rising around our feet and dusting our shoes white. The Bloody Baron's back stands before us as he faces the small opening to the dry, underwater cave. In the washed-out gloominess of the barred, stone prison, the spattered blood on the hem of his ragged, frilled coat is the only colour to be seen, and even that is almost grey.

He appears transparent as water, the craters in the stone behind him playing silvery ripples through him, glinting in the hatch of light.

Potter steps from the dark safety of the shadows. However, before he can clear his throat and muster any words to offer to the intimidating figure, a barely visible hand raises to stop him.

'Can you hear it?' the Baron's lofty voice sounds from behind the back of his curled wig.

I glance at Potter. He remains holding his tongue, words poised at the tip, lips parted, slackening his shadowed jaw. I shuffle into the light, opening my ears to the busy silence of listening, as we all peer out of the gap in the wall with curiosity.

I stand open-minded, listening. Nothing. But before I can dismiss these musings, Potter holds his arm in front of me, tilting his ear in the direction of the window.

White flutters around my robes as I wander up to the cell and grip the rusty bars. I lean my head against them, and _listen_. Through the cavern outwith these crumbling walls, the mournful hum and call of the mermaids' song resonates, gracing the cave with its sorrowful beauty. It tugs at my gut as it washes over me. I close my eyes and a sad smile reaches my lips.

'It makes you wonder how something so beautiful can be so terrible,' the Baron breathes.

I know his words hold more meaning than the context suggests, but, even with all of our questions, we don't ask about it. How long has he been around? And still no one really knows anything about him. He just sulks here, in the song. Although it is beautiful, he is right, it is terrible. I've been listening to it for two minutes and I already can't stand the saddening weight it casts. Imagine being locked in this small, coarse cell, getting just enough light and fresh air from the cave to drive you mad with desperation. And then to curl up for hours upon hours under the influence of these far-off, woeful wails…

Now I understand why the dungeons are partly in the cave.

My eyes narrow as I try to decipher their words, but I only hear Mermish, wavering, stringing notes.

I feel the presence of Potter beside me as his emerald eyes watch me, and then the Baron.

Again, he clears his throat-

'I cannot help you,' The Baron says, shortly.

Again. 'How-'

'You wish for me to grant you answers I either do not have, or cannot not give,' he denies, bluntly, head bowed, still turned away.

Potter swallows. He croaks, 'but my brother-'

'Is beyond saving,' the ghost states. 'As I said, some things I am unaware of and others I dare not offer.'

Al scoffs, harsh against the tension. He shakes his head in disbelief, glaring at the Baron, though he may as well be angered by a wall for all the spirit cares or appears.

He turns his sunken face towards us. 'It is not wise to take my words lightly,' he advises. 'What you know and what you will, I am sure, come to unveil are not matters to be met with ignorance.'

The Baron's usual rage is not of its usual soaring extravagance – the kind that quivers his moustache – but one of warning.

However, I can see fear in his eyes, which he seems to fight, as though suffocating it behind a cloudy film.

They continue like this. Potter grows irate. The Baron dismisses him. And I listen to the mermaids.

He's not going to get anywhere with this stubborn ghost. He's just upsetting himself. We won't get any answers this way. We need to tear the film and let it all out.

And then, the nonsense singing brings clarity:

Potter shouts, 'you don't understand-'

'Is it true, what they say about the mermaids' songs?' I ask, calmly, slowly turning my gaze to the ghost.

He looks back at me, at first bemusedly, then calculatingly.

I continue, 'don't people say that when you drown in mermaid waters they sing to you?'

His gaunt face and frame lose their haughtiness as he replies, 'yes; to the dead and the dying of what is on their conscience and then they sing their prayer.' His eyes darken, as though behind them his mind is elsewhere. They snap back to my face, pale in the darkness but still coloured with life. 'How do you know of this?'

'I read it in a poem,' I answer, looking up at Potter who has composed himself, appearing confused as to where I am going with this, but interested.

He nods to me.

I recite:

'As you fade your thoughts are for us to borrow,  
But the tale we sing is not ours to follow.  
With us you sink and in our song you wallow,  
As you drown, not in water, but in your sorrow.'

The Baron draws would-be breath, eyes wide.

There is silence. I wait.

'Well that's depressing,' Potter so intelligently blurts out.

I shoot him a warning look, hissing, 'I know,' with clenched teeth.

He stares back blankly. Until, finally, he nods in understanding, but then his brow creases.

The Baron doesn't notice the exchange, instead turning back to the little window. 'I lived a sad, fury-driven life. And now I am forced to live with my regrets and guilt in an eternity of death,' he whispers. 'But this is a price I am happy to pay.'

As he floats back to the spot we found him in, I enquire, 'what did you do?'

'I dare not say,' he repeats, though I'm not sure whether he is referring to the James ordeal or the blood on his clothes and his shackled wrists. 'But for centuries I have frequented this dungeon to dwell upon it, and every time I enter this prison they sing to me. After a long time of dwelling, I decided that it wasn't too late. In my conscious mind, I had ideas, grand ideas, but with greatness came the opportunity for darkness, and so it came.'

My mind whirrs, so much so that it feels blank. So I decide to push myself one last time, hoping for a comprehensible answer. I ask again, 'what did you do?'

'I took a life I wish to return,' he says. With grim posture, he slowly disappears through the wall and into the cave.

Through the gap, we see him float to the left, towards the sound of the mermaids.

**A/N: Please do review to let me know what you think! I could do with some feedback, seeing as it is so different to what you have read so far. Don't fret though, the next chapter shall return you to the clumsy world of Heidi, rather than the depressing Baron XD  
Also, remember I post predicted update dates and progress notes on my profile once I start planning and writing.**

**Now I shall leave you with my conclusion of the day: bagels are nice.**


	15. The Moral of the Story

My Sixth Year: Parkinson, Pressure & Mr Al Potter

Harry Potter: Next Generation Fan Fiction

**A/N: MY MAGIC BRINGS VOLDEMORT TO THE YARD AND I'M LIKE, IT'S HURTING MY SCAR- okay, I'm done. Hey there. Once again, I have stayed up 'til all hours on tumblr, so excuse my delusional… ness (like that).  
Thank you so, so much for the lovely reviews and stuff! I love hearing from you and your enjoyment really pushes me to start the next chapter straight away ;3  
I shall be in Italy from the 17****th****, for a week, so unfortunately I won't be able to update while I'm away, but I shall work on it while I'm there, melting in a sludgy Scottish heap under the Italian sun (seriously, I'm going to die. But there will be food; food is good) and I shall update when I return!  
Also, that is a great question "Hi writer", I can confirm that I do like potatoes, very much so, and thank you for your feedback.  
Please let me know what you think! We're back to the bonkers! :D**

**Chapter 15: The Moral of the Story**

We have followed our leads, gathering pretty much everything there is to know about, what I have dubbed, "the James ordeal", apart from whatever it is that the bloody Bloody Baron is hiding. One thing we know for sure is that it's bad news.

For the past two days we have been laying out what we know and have tried to piece it all together. What do we have? A ghost who wants to bring the dead to life, the very same ghost leaving someone else's body, that body rising as though nothing happened and then rearranging the school décor like some amateur interior designer – I'm telling you, all of those paintings are wonky – and also some random cat who just wants to be pretty.

If you ask me, the cat sounds most dangerous. The fiend could be strutting around in Flitwick's wig next.

And so, with such threats still loose around the school (I saw the cat waltzing along the viaduct like some innocent hairy fairy yesterday), what is Potter's next indisputable, strategic move? To stalk the brother who knocked him from the clouds around the library all day, gazing up Madam Pince's nostrils as she turns her nose up at us. Spiffing plan, Potts.

…

'The Knight cried, 'Rapunzel! Rapunzel! Let down your hair!'  
Knowing his sexy maiden would answer gratefully, he waited.  
Once several minutes had passed and her golden extensions had not flown down and suffocated him, he grew anxious. He called again and again, but his wish was not granted. Yet still, he waited for her. Hours passed. He wrote a novel, played chess against himself and lost, and went to the medieval takeaway around the corner, but no answer came in the night.  
However, he woke in the morning at the bottom of her tower to find her at the window, hands concealing her face in embarrassment, as her hair rose up all around her head in a seventy foot afro, frizz spilling out of the window.  
Knowing that he could never trust a woman who would mix up her shampoo with her adopted mother's, he rode off into the sunrise, back to his kingdom.  
But the weird thing is, he hypocritically went on to marry her mum, and "your mum" jokes were never the same… never…  
The End.'

I close the book that is supposed to be on giant wars, looking up at Potter from my armchair to where he stands, peering between books at his brother. 'Do you know the moral of the story?' I question him, folding my arms.

'To never let you read bedtime stories to children?' he guesses, reasoning, 'I somehow get the impression that that rendition would mentally scar them, quite permanently.'

'No, actually I was going more for "you're a twat and I don't know why I ever listen to you",' I correct, finally managing to get out of the swallowing armchair and hobbling over to place the book back where I found it.

He picks out a random book and pretends to read it as he continues to track James' movements. 'See, I never would have guessed that from the story, you should probably make them more relevant to one another,' he says, taking the book back from me once I flip it over, him having been "reading" it upside down. 'Besides, that moral wouldn't even be valid in the right context, because I'm perfect and everyone knows it,' he quietly crows.

'And it is saying things like that that stops people from liking you,' I smile oh-so-lovingly, sitting back in the armchair and immediately regretting it when my bum slips between the cushions again.

'And it is saying things like, "do you think if I were to paint you green, people would think you're a giant broccoli?" to Keren, that stops people from liking you,' he returns the favour.

I pause my mad struggle against the chair to guffaw like a child writing "poo" on a teacher's blackboard as I reminisce.

Glimpsing James moving to another isle, Potter tugs on my arm, pulling me free and dragging me along to the next bookshelf to continue spying.

After huffing considerably and waddling straight into Potter when he abruptly decides to stop, I whisper, 'but really, can you blame me for wondering why I let you bring me here to spend my Saturday creepily watching your brother?'

Seriously, what is he expecting? For James to tap dance on the tables and perform a few musical numbers on why he's being such a dick biscuit? Or maybe he'll give us a few ballads on why the Baron possessed him.

'Yes, I understand, but you agreed to help me with this and there's no going back now,' he hisses, pulling out a History of Magic encyclopaedia to hide behind. 'The Baron was talking about bringing the dead to life and my brother is involved in that somehow, like a host or sacrifice or something, and we need to stop it before we find _him_ sprawled in a corridor instead of some cat,' he hushedly fumes, shoving a paperback into my hands, with a tense jaw and burning eyes.

I sigh, examining its cover: a ghost boy embracing a living girl, with the title 'Charming the Dead' above and five stars from Witch Weekly below. I raise a quizzical eyebrow at Potter, but then shake my head and pull the book up to mask my mouth, spotting James browsing the old Potions books.

'I get that, really, I do – I wouldn't want that to be Marie, no matter how many times she's taken my classic novels and scrawled little messages inside the covers,' I admit, veering off on a painful tangent.

I look up at him, enviously noting the way his long, dark lashes fan out as his rich eyes speculate James from behind a passage on magic's involvement in World War II. I stare until they meet mine before continuing, 'but do you really think it wise to be clumsily following around someone who shoved you out of the sky? I'm hardly you're number one fan,' I say, cocking my head pointedly over to a band of giggling girls watching him by the window, 'but even I would at least lay out a pillow for you to land on.' I shrug, 'maybe a blanket.'

'You're so good to me,' he softly cries, performing his classic sarcastic smile and holding his free hand to his chest.

I nod humbly, 'I know, I'm a saint.'

I turn several pages of the book, having found it to be a little too cringe-worthy, I drop the act and swiftly change the subject back, 'but seriously, what if he catches us and drops us from the Astronomy Tower?' I nervously glance above a collection of large, hardback reference books at the madman in question. His head is bowed while he reads with his precious notebook in his other hand.

Al shakes his head and strolls further down the isle.

I follow him and smack my decoy book across his arm, insisting, 'I don't care what he said to Professor Ging-arresto-momentum. He was not "just trying to blag you", he demounted you from your broom and set you falling to your death!' I point to his brother, harshly whispering the truth we've been avoiding admitting aloud, 'that demonic bookworm is not your arrogant prat of a brother. He tried to kill you and the only reason he has been allowed to stay at school is because of his adamant lies and excuses, meaning that he wants to stay here – that he has a reason to. And that reason could very well be to try and have another go at you,' I finish, hands on hips, feeling very much like Molly Weasley. I feel so empowered! The fiery hair probably would have helped though.

Unfortunately, my well-put, (for once not sarcastically) logical speech is not received the way I had hoped: Potter's solemn expression of forced acceptance suddenly slips for a smirk.

'You do care,' he coos, walking towards me with open arms.

Well there's only one way I'm ever going to receive _that_: I throw the book at his face and run for merciless life.

…

'Heidi?'

I can hear Potter's muffled beckoning from underneath my strangely comfortable mountain of beanbags. I can sense his feet standing right outside my protective fort and just know that he'll be smirking, arms crossed.

I can also hear the complaints and continued protests from the readers I had pulled the beanbags from underneath, before hastily burying myself.

'Heidi?'

Should I answer him? Nah. I like it in here. It's a little hard to breathe and I may run out of oxygen, but I can address that issue when it comes to it.

'Heidi, come on,' he sighs, taking on the role of impatient dad yet again. 'People want their beanbags back.'

Well, I want doesn't get, muchachos!

I could crouch here for the next hour, until they go away, but that would probably be quite boring. On the other hand, I could burst out of here, take them all by surprise, maybe give some of them a beanbag to the face – I have plenty of ammo – and leg it.

Someone over to the right somewhere suggests, 'why don't you just take the beanbags away?'

THIS FORT SHALL STAND.

'Because then she'll kick up more of a fuss,' he explains, growing restless. 'She's like a child, but one with the brains to know exactly how to annoy you further and cause even more trouble.'

I think that's the nicest thing he's ever said about me.

I hear mutters of agreement and understanding, followed by the sighs of defeat and leaving footsteps.

'Just come out Heidi.' He promises, 'we don't have to spend any more time in here today if you come out now.'

I wait, mulling over his proposition of sweet, sweet freedom.

'And you won't try to hug me again?' I test, quivering in my beanbags.

I hear him laugh. 'And I won't try to hug you again,' he agrees. 'So, come on…'

After a few more silent seconds he reluctantly adds, 'please.'

'PLEASE AND THANK YOU, THEY'RE CALLED THE MAGIC WORDS. IF YOU WANT NICE THINGS TO HAPPEN, THEY'RE THE WORDS THAT SHOULD BE HEARD,' I holler as I rise, arms in the air, in a shower of pelting beanbags.

I skip through the library, pulling Potter, who has to awkwardly run so to not end up being dragged along the floor, behind me.

As we flee from the library, and henceforth Madam Pince's fury, he breathlessly objects, 'this is _nice_?!'

'Of course!' I pant, regretting the whole running thing. 'Don't you just love the dusty castle wind in your hair?'

We finally come to a stop in the second floor corridor, regaining our much-needed breath in hot-air-balloon-fuls.

I whine, hands on knees, then knees on floor, then everything on floor, 'why do we always end up running?'

He shakes his head at me with disdain. 'Yeah, that's a real puzzler, isn't it?'

He glances at his watch and sharply sighs, puffing a few dark, wavy locks from his eyes. 'I highly doubt we'll be allowed back in the library,' he says pointedly. 'So what do you want to do now?'

I falsely ponder, stroking my chin, 'hmmm, that's a tough one- how about: let's go back to the common room!'

As I start to skip away he tugs me back by the hood of my grey jumper and says, 'I think we should try and come up with some logical reasoning behind the chain of events the paintings told us. We should know enough by now. Anyways,' he continues, 'it's your own fault we'll be going back late, because you wouldn't get up before two o'clock.'

Still being held like a dog on a leash, I yawn right on cue. I sleepily grin at his unamused poker face.

He leads me into the Charms classroom and closes the door, heading over to one of the rows of tables.

I crouch and paw at the door, whining.

After an hour of him fruitlessly trying to come up with anything logical from the scraps of parchment in front of him, I have ended up incessantly hitting my head on door, still crouched there.

I glare at him, watching as he picks up the piece of parchment reading "cat places paw on necklace" and stares at it, brows pulled together, for thirty determined seconds.

The clock tower chimes five o'clock. He still doesn't move. I groan, startling him, and march over to the table he works at, at the front row on the right of the mountain of books Professor Flitwick usually chirps from. Snatching the parchment from him and placing it back in the timeline, I stand next to him, sliding my vision up and down the order of events.

Again, I come to the conclusion I always have, 'it's the cat.' He moans and puts his head to the table, but I insist, 'no, seriously, it's the cat!' I firmly explain, pointing to each torn piece of parchment in turn, 'James was acting weird before because the Baron had possessed him or something for his whole "bringing the dead to life" scheme, but then he was pushed out when that cat came along and touched the necklace at the same time as James.' As Potter pulls his head back up to attention, his brow smoothing, I round off, 'that could either mean the necklace had the power to push one soul from another, or that it somehow acted as a bridge,' I glance uneasily at him, 'allowing the cat to possess him instead.'

I continue to peruse the timeline and jump when Potter suddenly laughs. I glower at him, heaving, '_what?_'

'You think a cat has possessed my brother?' he smirks, trying to control his giggling.

'Well, what's your theory, _Chuckles_?!' I spit, fists balled at my hips.

Bracing himself for my smugness, he pauses, and then answers, 'I don't have one.' Before I can throw my hands in the air and make a snarky retort, he adds, 'but I think we should work through these once more.' He sweeps his hand across the timeline and leans forward in his chair.

Huffing and rolling my eyes, I sit next to him and we start from the beginning. This just so happens to be hundreds of years ago; the Baron's death. This could take some time.

Resting his chin on his clasped hands, Potter deliberates, 'the Baron said he did something before his death that's haunted him since and that recently he found a way to fix it.'

'And it turns out that his regret was taking a life, which he now wishes to "return",' I mumble in routine, blankly staring at the parchment and following the grain of the table with my finger. How many times have we gone over this already?

He continues, 'so he has found a way to return that life and, judging by his _leaving_ my brother-'

I interrupt, 'your bitter tone suggests you're really mad that he left him. Don't worry,' I console, patting his head, or rather messing his hair around. 'He'll find someone else. His heart will go on-'

Before I can start singing, he shoves a tear-off of parchment in my face, shakes his head free of my hand and continues, 'judging by his physically leaving my brother,' he corrects, 'he needed him for the process or something, but then the cat came along…'

He holds the parchment inked with the description of the cat wearing the necklace in front of his face, now leaning back in his chair. His face contorts with concentration and confusion and his eyes flicker as his mind whirrs behind them.

'And that's where my theory comes in!' I breathlessly finish. 'I've always said cats were evil, but no one would heed my warnings,' I tirade, shaking my head to then brush away the mousy hair that falls in my face in further annoyance. 'This is just the beginning of some deadly, massive rise of the planet of the cats operation!' I gasp, eyes wide and far too close to his face, which remains facing towards the inky blue of the windows, while his eyes dart around, but slower now, as though a conclusion is dawning on him.

Appearing a lot deeper and shinier with the candlelight against the darkness, his eyes draw to a stop on my own murky pair.

We stay like that for while, his lips parted.

Then, I finally bring myself to blink and realisation of the little space between us startles me back against my seat.

He awkwardly clears his throat and, placing the parchment of description back in line, he softly ruminates, 'say that your idea of the necklace being a bridge was true...'

Finally, he's coming to his senses. I nod appreciatively, allowing him to go on.

He develops, but not with his usual vigour, not unsurely, but uneasily, 'what if that cat wasn't all that it seemed- don't say "evil",' he quickly silences me before the word can escape my grinning mouth. 'What if it was an Animagus? Or it was being controlled, similarly to my brother and the Baron?'

My gloating smile from his acceptance of my theory slowly droops. I take a few steady breaths, thinking it over. It would make sense; Pat, the chimney sweep, had described the cat as behaving extremely intelligently, so it very well could have been influenced by someone. And then when I'd had it in my flailing grip outside the library (I wash away the memories of what, or rather who, happened afterwards) it was just like every other cat I'd fought with. Stop judging me.

With this thought in mind, my brow bunches to match Al's and I voice it, despite the dark, knowing look in his eyes and set jaw, 'but now the cat's just a cat. Therefore, the necklace did its job and now James is possessed by someone else; someone worse than a ghost trying to make up for his wrongs; someone who wants to hurt, if not kill you.'

Al looks away, exhaling deeply and exasperatedly. Shaking his head in disbelief, he says, 'I don't think they _want_ me dead. I don't think it's their goal.' As I head to bewilderedly object with how James had blatantly tried to drop him from the sky, he explains, 'if it were their goal, they would have done it by now, but he's been spending all of his time in the library, still. The Quidditch match was the first time he'd so much as looked at me in a long time, never mind tried to kill me.'

I grudgingly take this in, but still counter, 'it may not be their main goal, but their pushing you off your broom suggests that they wouldn't mind it as a bonus.'

Seeing the mix of deep concern and hesitant fear sink and rise in his wavering features, along with his breathing, I joke, 'I bet it's one of your crazed, rejected fans.'

He offers a crooked smile with even, Merlin forbid, a hint of a laugh. I take it and return it.

Getting up from my seat, I admire the golden glow of the parchment in the light. Looking down on the ragged pieces, they look like blue-ink inscribed bricks from an Egyptian pyramid, but as I sweep them in front of me, they are merely torn notes in my shadow.

Potter's voice, despite its softness, cuts into the gold and blue silence as he admits, 'No matter how terrible the truth turned out to be, I thought I would be at least the slightest bit relieved to know it. But I just feel worse.'

His chin still rests on his joined hands, elbows on the table, and his knees sit together while his feet lay apart. He stares darkly at the parchment bundle. His eyes glisten, like real emeralds. I can't tell if it is just because of the light or if there are in fact tears there, but the emotion to bring them forth certainly is.

I shuffle the pieces of parchment into a neat pile and hop up to sit on the table in front of him, my shadow slicing through the glow on his face, turning it from gold to porcelain once more. I carefully take one of his wrists from under his head, causing his gaze to trace up my length, from the table to my face, and I press the timeline notes into his hand.

'We had the brains to figure all of this out from some ghost's ramblings, a recap from a few blobs of oil and some strange behaviour from your brother,' I nod hesitantly, cautious of myself. I finish, 'and we have the brains to do something about it. We will save him.'

What am I doing? What am I signing myself up for? Merlin almighty, Heidi, do you ever learn?

Despite these scolding thoughts meandering through my subconscious mind, I don't snap from my dazed, far too friendly behaviour until the clock tower chimes for dinner.

With the call of Hogwarts food, I hastily pull my hand from his and rush for the door.

…

You know the idea of us having a little angel and devil on either of our shoulders? Well, on one of mine I have Perry and on the other I have Marie and they are both devils – two embodiments of my conscience grating away at me, voicing all that I have been trying to block out, wall up and cement, far, far away in the teeniest cranny in my mind.

'You held his hand,' they whisper over and over and over. 'You saved his life,' they go on. 'You comforted him. You've been helping him.'

They were doing this all the way through dinner. I even left some food on my plate. Keren and Laura had glanced worriedly at one another, but hadn't questioned it. In fact, they left very quickly after, taking with them the point of me sitting, waiting for them. They said they would "catch me later". They never "catch me later". They "catch me now"; preferably before I hit the ground on my many stumbles back to the common room. But tonight I am making this clumsy journey alone, after confusedly staring into space at the table for a while longer. Or at least I thought I was going to be alone. The situation is actually far worse.

I traipse through the Great Hall doors to find Potter leaning, still clad in his jeans, t-shirt and leather, hooded jacket, against the frame. Conflicted as to whether I should stop or keep walking, I simply slow down. But then I can't keep myself from taking a fleeting look at him and this pulls him over.

Seemingly trying to tuck a rising smirk back down, he swallows and faces away as we head towards the stone staircase to the Slytherin dungeons. After an amused silence for him and a dread-filled dose for me, he says, orderly, 'I was thinking we should probably check out some of the books we saw James looking at in the library. I have some of the page numbers.'

When I don't offer a response, he adds, 'but it doesn't have to be particularly soon. It'd most likely be best to avoid going there for a while, what with,' he steadily sighs, 'the beanbags.'

I shy away from his speculating glances as he tries to measure up my features for any sign of my usual self.

Well she doesn't seem to be totally here right now. This new girl thinks it's okay to console him and hold his hand and gawk at him inches from his face. She's left the real me baffled and mortified, with no explanation for my actions.

As we come to the end of the stairs, I clench my jaw, just waiting for it. Here it comes. I just know it. I can see that glint in his eye and I know what's coming next.

Right on cue, he smirks, 'so you do care.'

I stop walking and turn to him.

A weight in my chest seems to drop, hunching my shoulders forward and I can tell I've lost it. I can't even bring myself to gleam a sarcastic smile his way, or, even more of my usual character, to whack him around the obnoxious head. Instead I merely shake my head incredulously and then glower.

'It's okay, I care for me too-'

Images of my wand sparking a spell as he falls hopelessly past me, a winded little bird, flash through my mind. I growl exasperatedly, 'why do I even bother?!'

I quickly stomp off, down the corridor, around the bend and up to the familiar slab of stone-bricked wall. I shortly snap the password to it and the stones give way for me to hurry along the tunnel, which is usually lit with the green light of our common room, but, as far as I can tell with the glow of the two torches at the start of the passageway, is so dark due to the cascading folds of a black sheet hanging from the end opening.

I can hear Potter's feet slapping through the stone walkway behind me and his calls of my name, but when I pull the sheet aside, he's too late.

Hordes of students – way more than usual for our self-satisfactory, fairly unsociable house – flock around the common room, chattering away. Keren and Laura rush around, directing people to various people certain places.

Keren hollers, 'alright everyone, she should be here any min-'

'Guys?' I wave questionably. What on wizard earth is going on? Are they sorting us into an army or something? But one with food and sparklers and banners…

Uh oh.

'HAPPY BIRTHDAY!' everyone yells in unison.

Oh yeah, that thing.

The sudden volume sends me stumbling back into a smirking Potter.

Great, I'm sandwiched between two hells. Ketchup anyone?

**A/N: Just thought you all might like to get a little insight of what life is like in my house: My mum just bought me a new bra, so she randomly opened my door, threw it at my face and yelled "stop 'em floppin'", then left.  
Life is beautiful :')**


	16. Tony and Locky, the Embers and Potty

My Sixth Year: Parkinson, Pressure & Mr Al Potter

Harry Potter: Next Generation Fan Fiction

**A/N: Howdy my strangers! I have returned from the land of… good food (Italy) and I have stayed up until all hours (literally, it's 5am) finishing this update for you, so I apologise for any mistakes, even though I proof read it a billion times. It has taken so much time since I got back because I've had to type up, add to and edit everything I wrote on holiday and then the continuation from what I got up to ended up a lot longer than I'd first expected.  
Thank you ever so much for your reviews, favourites and follows and PMs! :D I am incredibly grateful for all of your loveliness and it keeps my enthusiasm for this story constantly strong!  
So here you have the next chapter, just for you guys! ;)**

**Chapter 16: Tony and Locky, the Embers and Potty**

I have great friends. They managed to gather just about all of the unsociable, pompous Slytherins in one room just for me. I am really grateful for the notion of the surprise party and appreciate their effort, but being shepherded around all night, talking to people who I don't know and are either far too proud of their sheer existence or are frankly just scary, simply isn't my idea of a good time. They know this, obviously, as one does not simply befriend and put up with a mad bint for several years without learning about them. But, like all friends and family, they also think they know what's best for me – that it's about time I wriggled from the comfortable earth, sat down my books and got to know the people who are familiar with my antics, but not with me. How terrible for them, not being my friends. Because everyone wants to be the one I land on when I fall every few seconds. Poor Keren and Laura- no, not poor Keren and Laura! I'm being mad at them right now!

I understand that if we weren't to _mingle _– that supposedly natural, instinctive thing that nonetheless sends me writhing and swiping at my tongue just from the mention of it – we would cease to exist, but I would rather not meet my boyfriend/husband/dino mate amongst these morphing shadows in the dim common room, at a grudgingly flowing party. But they believe that there's no other way, because, apparently, you can't marry fictional characters.

I know they're just trying to help me get through this whole Adrian thing, but they're going the wrong way about it. Even if I wanted to meet someone here, I couldn't. There are so many mines of holes in this plan: for one, most guys are immediately put off by me because I have the graciousness of a spitting alpaca. Also, I could be chatting up a boggart for all I know in this dim light. Then we have the disastrous outcome of a relationship with anyone here; can you imagine a child with my lack of sanity and the stuffiness of one of this lot? That kid would bring about the end of the universe. Whether that be from them growing too big for their boots or from accidentally launching a worldwide nuclear attack by pressing a shiny button out of mere curiosity, it would happen.

And now you understand my, completely rational of course, fear of people.

Yet despite my objections I've ended up circling the room with the awkwardness of a one-legged turkey, asking people _how they are feeling_. It's revolting. I've tried everything to stop the blasphemy. I even stood on the buffet table, squishing some of the toadstool-like cakes into risotto with my chunky black boots, yelling about how unjust it is to face an innocent being, with no quarrels to settle and no wrongs to repent, against the flaming jaws of hell. That meaning "I shan't mingle with these peasants, you cannot make me." But they did. After Keren forced me to slip into one of her dresses – a far-too-fitting-for-my-liking black number with long sleeves that are supposed to compensate for the lack of body length – Laura hooked my arm, linking me to her in a frigid chain, making me talk to _normal people_. I've tried to escape to my cosy cubby of books with plenty of pillows to fire at stalking cats, but it's no use.

I thought when Keren returned from scavenging the room for Louis, she would suggest that we dance, giving me a chance to scramble for the dorm, but it only got worse.

Now they've both finally left me to slump on a couch, grumbling like an elderly man, with a goblet of pumpkin juice. Laura's "conversation starter", my Quidditch commentary, resounds in my left ear and Keren's frantically shrill worrying about if Louis could be avoiding her rings in my right.

My eyes roll over the jagged stalagmites of the cave ceiling in annoyance as Keren and Laura peer back every two seconds to check that I'm still here, sulking. In doing so, I notice banners strapping rocky spike to spike until the ends meet, forming a circle. The watery light of the lake-surrounded room reflects shimmering stripes out from the circle in the green and silver of the lettered strips, resulting in the appearance of the unsteady hand of a child having drawn a sun up on the ceiling; rough, but sparkling, and cold, like the sun has been frosted over, shining now in only blues, greens and silver and white. It's extremely beautiful and I gasp despite myself.

The banners rolled onto the walls, however, snuff the awed exhale in a choke of laughter. I spin my gaze around the room, reading the charmed glowing words on them: above the black walnut grandfather clock, "Happy 16th – better late than never.' Bridging between two torches, alit with harmless green flames, "Happy 16th birthday… sort of." Plastered across the painting of a very indignant Neptune, "17 today! Just go with it."

Not only are the words blatantly Keren's, they are also an apology; the whole party is – last year Professor Sinistra gave me detention for a week for knocking over every single one of my classmates' telescopes, sending them plummeting and distantly smashing at the bottom of the Astronomy Tower. Although this may sound like another one of my impressively clumsy acts, this time the record klutz was not to blame. Keren had pushed me and no matter how many times she explained this to Professor Purple, her grudge against me kept the blame in place, strong as a sticking charm, on me as always. And so I had not been able to spend my sixteenth birthday with my friends, and by friends I mean chocolate frogs, due to the many important reunions of dusters and trophies I had to attend.

So this is the pixie's way of making it up to me, even though she knows I would rather she apologised in chocolate. At least that's one thing Potter has done right, him having given me some of my chocolate "friends" after sending me on a fruitless hike up the Astronomy Tower –

You know, I have come to notice a bit of a pattern here. The Astronomy Tower is where I've received most of my detentions. I've sent people tumbling down the stairs. I've nearly sent people tumbling through the air, over the edge. I've bowled school equipment to the ground form it. I've passed out on it. I've bowled Potter over because he made me climb it… I get the impression that I will most probably meet my death on that tower. I have almost done so before.

– But as I tear my eyes away from the dancing shadows of seaweed, cast by lights behind the windows, I find myself in need of more chocolate frogs, my eyes stopping on an irritatingly familiar green pair.

Oh great.

Suddenly wishing Keren and Laura would take me on another _mingling_ adventure, I rip my eyes from Al's and my bare legs from the leather couch, ready to spring into some lovely conversation with my delightful party-goers.

'Heidi!' he calls over the chatter and clatter, reminding me, with a twinge of annoyance and embarrassment, of my trapped entrance – his shouts and footsteps behind me, the party waiting ahead – and his confronting me about my stupid actions earlier. Flush-faced, I keep striding away.

He calls again as I pathetically try to push through the water-highlighted dark and the green tinted bodies clouding it. He calls once more. Although his tone is softer now, it sounds louder. He draws up behind me, takes hold of the crook of my arm and guides me along the wall, in and out of the green and blue light pooling in through the windows, making my dreaded steps, which echo his, appear staccato, like the flicking pages of a picture book. The last page being his face tilted down at mine; sharp jaw leading to a pointed chin; smooth, angled cheekbones cutting towards a slender nose; thin lips contrastingly pink against his pale skin; dark slim eyebrows. All sliced through with shadows. All sharp and clean-cut. But then, there's his soft eyes, intensely green in the similarly coloured room; long curling lashes, fanned out like feathers, the same colour as his wavy ebony hair. All precise, all angles and elegance, except for those slight, animated eyes, boring into mine, shining… and questioning. Damn it, he asked me a question.

He's lead me to the edge of the room, between the two stone tunnels leading to the separate sex dorms, and is shaking his head expectantly, waiting for an answer to a question I didn't hear because I was… _admiring_ him? Despite the pumpkin juice being completely alcohol free, I suddenly feel the desire to throw up. What is wrong with me? It's not even as though I can say I was merely appreciating his looks, I have admitted before that he is attractive, hell, I've even admitted that Malfoy's attractive, but I was _itching_ to whap out paints and start creating a portrait! What the flaming hell, Heidi?! You're not artistic! You just draw wolf-mentors and cats in tutus! Help. Please help me. What if I start writing freaking novels about the curve of his eyes? I can't be one of his fans, I can't! He's _Potter_; he makes me want to explode, but now I can't spontaneously combust because of "the way his eyes sparkle"! Spontaneous combustion was my favourite part of the day as well… Sometimes I loathe myself and my over-observance. You know what? I am going to make him wear a paper bag over his head from now on. I can't be done with it and its distracting qualities; I much preferred it when my snide remarks were on cue, rather than being delayed for _this_.

And even after all of this determined ranting about how I am no longer going let this get the better of me, I still haven't answered him. This isn't fair – I _object_ to life!

'Heidi?' He waves in front of my face. Realising his other hand is still on my arm, he abruptly pulls it away. Leaning forward, he searches my eyes for any sign of intelligent life – hah, good luck to him, in fact, no, not good luck to him, I don't like him right now either.

'Earth to Davis?' he smirks.

But of course I continue to gawk up at him, away in fairy land. Perhaps this nonsense would stop if I were to picture him as one of the fairies…

Why have I started being like this with him? You'd think if I were going to go way beyond the boundaries of insanity that it would have happened the moment I met him, rather than now.

Okay. Just picture him with dainty wings, a tutu and… a sparkly quiff? Yes. Yes, that works.

'Why are you laughing?' he asks quizzically, the cheeky glint in his eye faltering slightly in wariness.

I wave dismissively. 'Oh nothing,' I chide. 'Don't worry your pretty little head. Nothing wrong here – nothing at all. Now, if you don't mind, I have a party to… party.'

Nailed it.

I back away from the edge of the room, from him, slowly.

Again, he shakes his head, this time in irritated disbelief. But he doesn't follow or pull me back, which is surprising considering he's as stubborn as I am. Instead, he just leans back against the wall, hands in jean pockets, blankly watching me scurry away from further mortification, a statue lurking in the shadows.

I get the feeling that this whole "avoiding him until I stop ogling at him and _comforting_ him" thing isn't going to work out. I need a new plan. I could always just face my problems instead of running from them? Oh boy do I know how to crack the jokes. I could steer him away by telling him I have a serious, contagious disease? Well, everyone already seems to think I have some form of prehistoric rabies, yet that hasn't sent him running for the sane and healthy hills. Oh! I could become an illegal Animagus – a Pegasus llama to be specific – and fly to Peru! Will they have mash potato there or will I have to bring my own? Oh well, I can sort out the details later. First, the girls' dorms and then Peru.

Now I need to find an escape route. There's the narrow path between the dancing group in the middle and the outer circle of bystanders? Or I could elbow-crawl around everyone's feet. I would rather not get kicked in the face though.

It's no use. Whichever way I go, I'm going to have to pass Potter to go through the arched tunnel. I need a distraction…

Not wasting another moment, I slither around various bodies until I reach a small porthole-like window with a small girl peering through it. As I stand beside her I can hear her humming against the party's rock music. Quiet, high tones of a familiar sad song murmur in her throat as she scrapes her delicate fingers through her rusty, long waves. She stares passively ahead, knowing I'm there, but not acknowledging it for want of appearing elegant and uncaring.

Aria. She does this a lot. Many students make fun of her and her fishy ways. To clarify, she thinks she's a mermaid. She's weird, like me, except she stows away from her troubles by pretending to be someone else. I just trap mine. I'd rather suffocate them than inhale them and embrace the pain, the embarrassment, whatever may be on the sucky menu of the day. But I also like escaping into other worlds, through books. For one, it's fascinating, but it also brings relief to read of a fictional life; to be someone else with different problems – problems that don't necessarily matter in the end because they're not real. I understand her. She's probably one of the only younger students I let have the Monster Milk at breakfast. That's a true milestone in every form of relationship.

I glance cautiously over at Potter. He's still set, stone against stone, leaning back on the wall by the dorms. Except now he's gazing far off, at nothing in particular, instead of at me, thankfully.

My eyes flit over to the flashing sight of little orange flames. Keren and Laura are lighting the candles on a cake- wait. Not just any cake. A _mash potato_ cake. Sculpted into a number seventeen and decorated with fork trails and swirls, it shines magnificently. I will be back for that. Unless there's a way for me to smuggle it away with me… I doubt it.

I reach for it longingly. _I shall return for you, my sweet_. Signing the promise in stomach rumbles, I lean down to little Aria's ear and whisper my request. I subtly fold her payment – a dried starfish I retrieved from the powdery dungeon floor – into her hand.

She holds it to her round, turquoise eyes. She beams. She _screams_. And unearthly sound. An underwater sound. If she were really a mermaid, the shrill, high yet throaty cry would have smashed the windows in an explosion of shard and lake water, as effectively as a giant's punches. But she's just a little girl with problems, and so the common room is not put under immediate construction to become an aquarium. It grabs everyone's attention easily enough though.

As soon as the scream pierces the air every face turns to the mermaid girl. People cringe away and grimace from the long, loud sound, as sharp as the fangs of the snake engraved on the stone wall above the fireplace. The windows splinter with shallow cracks, white lines webbing across the panes like frost. Hands over ears, the students gape at the source, some incredulous, some stunned. However, amongst them Keren and Laura glare at each other knowingly, jaws clenched. If this were an underground spy base, they'd hit the emergency alert button on the wall, sending red lights swirling, sirens wailing and speakers booming, 'WARNING, WARNING, PRISONER ZERO HAS ESCAPED.' But this is not an underground spy base. It is a slow party in an underwater school common room. We don't have warning lights, we don't have sirens. We have Keren and Laura holding their ears and frantically whipping their heads around to find me, jaws clenched. They basically look like they are doing some rage-motivated aerobics. We also don't have a speaker declaring my disappearance, but, unfortunately, we have a Peeves.

'HEIDI-WEIDI'S RUNNING AWAY!' he screeches, his mouth as wide and grey as the tunnel I sprint for. He jabs a finger at me, which creates an expanding spot of wet cold in my chest as I run through it. 'SHE'S HERE, SHE'S HERE, SHE'S HERE!'

'Heidi!' Keren shrieks indignantly, all sparkles and curls, apart from her sour face.

With a cackle and a grin at my grateful hand gesture, the ghost floats back up through the frosted sun. I listen as I run, expecting to hear footsteps. There are none.

I turn. Aria is placing the starfish in her hair, no longer screaming. All eyes are on me. Keren is shaking her head, heels scraping on the ground and wanting to clack over to me and pull me back. But Laura's outstretched arm is blocking her. She looks disappointed, but she makes no move. No one does.

'Sorry,' I try to say, but it merely comes out in a breath, before I turn back to the tunnel and watch the gleam on the toes of my boots fade as I walk through it, the darkness swallowing me and lingering, even when I find the light of the dorm.

…

I feel terrible. I know, you are probably sick of me whining – I'm not happy out there, I'm not happy in here… But I'm just as fed up with it as you are. I don't want to feel this way and I don't know why I do. For the first time in my life my books aren't a great enough distraction, my bed doesn't seem so cosy and comfortable and no amount of hissing at Lucifer, who is now just a pair of yellow eyes creeping at me from the end of my bed, has been able to console me.

It makes no sense! I'm not the one who's lost their parents. I'm not the one who's not spoken to their possessed brother in years. I'm just confused and my emotions and actions are following in suit.

Apart from the whole James investigation and some stupid bet, I don't even have much going on right now in my life to trouble me. But I do have a lot on my mind, which feels like congealed mush powered by a potato.

I've been thinking about everything and it's all making me sad; Al, what he actually means to me, or rather _if_ he means anything to me, what he's gone through and is going through with his brother, why I insist on embarrassing myself around him more so than with others; Adrian, how I feel about him, if he actually ever liked me at all in that way, how I've failed him and not been there for him by avoiding him because of the way _I_ feel instead of considering the way he must feel; Scorpius and Rose and their careless gallivanting, stretching the secret and me to snapping; my mum and dad, how I should be thankful for all they provide me with, yet how ignored and unimportant they leave me to feel despite all of that, Marie and Perry being their main and only concerns; Keren and Laura, how they're always there for me and how I feel as though I don't do enough for them to show that I care and that I am grateful, how I left them tonight after all of their efforts even though I know they had the best intentions; my almost-panic-attack on the night of the dance, how terrified I am of actually having one in school, imagining everyone crowded around my ashen face as I shake helplessly on the floor. No wonder I'm mad! My problems may not be like Adrian's or Al's, but put them together and what have you got? Me curled up in my bed, in the darkness of the drawn curtains, with a damp, salty pillow.

It's just the way every day has turned out to be; sad until shut down. I'm bitter, I eat, I embarrass myself, I'm bitter, I eat some more, I grovel in my bed and then eventually my brain can't take anymore of "everything" and it powers down to a few hours of heavy sleep until my stupid owl wakes me up at stupid o'clock.

It's pointless trying to fall asleep now, I won't be able to. My mind will decide when it has had enough after another few pathetic hours of wallowing. So, I decide to do what I do best: comfort eat.

Leaving behind Keren's sprawled form, wild black mane at the wrong end of the bed, I tiptoe past Laura's rhythmic bass of snores, and out of the dorm, wincing as I try to shut the creaking door quietly.

My bare feet, grey in the dark, pad past the other dorms and along through the passageway to the common room.

Dark mint walls, stone, marble, leather and wood. The spacious communal room feels ghostly empty after its packed status earlier. Wrappers, hats, scarves, food scraps, lost jewellery and even a wand litter the floor. I hop around the minefield of muck, over to the food table, now cleared except for my beauteous "cake".

However, before I can slap my face into it and cry like I had planned, I notice a tan leather book to the side of it, stark gold against the white table cloth. My eyebrows rise as I flip the cover open and find a note written on the first blank page, then furrow as I squint through the dull light from the lake windows at the practical font.

'I know this party wasn't what you wanted, but Keren and I thought that it would help you. We know you've not been in the best of ways lately, what with Adrian's parents passing and everything that came along with it, but we want you to know that we're not mad at you for leaving. Well, Keren is, but you know what she's like with parties, especially ones she hosts, but she'll be over it and back to moaning about Louis in no time. We're sorry that we didn't let you spend your birthday the way you would have liked, but we hope that this will make it up to you.

Lots of love and Beater bats,  
Laura.'

Underneath in large, curving, purple letters it is also signed,

'And Keren! Xx'

I turn the page to find the title printed boldly:

William Shakespeare

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

I smile. It's a warm, genuine smile, but it makes my chest contract and I feel cold. I'm the one who should be apologising, properly, rather than whispering and running like I did earlier. I don't deserve her. Or Keren. Hell, I don't deserve Rose or Adrian either! Even Potter and Blondie would be better off without me!

Suddenly, I don't feel like eating anymore.

I trudge over to the faltering, flickering remains of the green light in the fireplace, the cotton of my lilac shirt and trousers brushing around my legs, arms and hips. Raking a hand through my tousled hair, I sit down on the couch opposing the glowing embers and open the book at Act I, Scene 1.

Behind me I sense movement, see a shadow in the corner of my eye and hear muffled footsteps. This doesn't alarm me though; I'm aware that he's been here the whole time, _exactly_ the way I left him. It bemuses me as to why he stayed in the shadows all night, but I clearly can't be the only one with many thoughts eating at me. Perhaps he was dieting. All the same, I was just playing oblivious, hoping he wouldn't make himself known to question my embarrassingly friendly actions today. But now that he has lit a lantern and set it down on the table next to me, no sarcasm to be heard or any generally prat-y behaviour to be found, I guess I shouldn't object to him sitting next to me, even if I'm in my pyjamas.

Though, I would rather be alone right now. I don't feel like dealing with people, especially Potter. If he makes a single Potter-ish comment I know I'll immediately snap and wake the whole school with my screaming. And I don't not want to talk to him just because I know he'll bring up the dreaded topic of the day – "you do care" – I want to be left to myself. Just my issues, my book and the quiet of the common room.

I could always walk away, but when do I ever actually dig in my heels and handle problems before they spiral out of control? Judging by my state tonight, that'll be never. Perhaps my mind would be able to drift back to things like unicorns and my theory of the moon being a giant glowing potato, if I were to start clearing the waters.

So I remain quiet as he silently sits with his arm over the back of the couch, reading the book in my lap as I do.

Before I know it, we've reached Act III, Scene 3 and Shylock is banging on about his bond. Basically, Antonio made a bet with him and lost and now Locky is demanding a pound of Tony's flesh in payment because he has called him a dog before and he didn't really appreciate that. If I weren't so stubborn about keeping all of Shakespeare's texts precisely the way they are, I would be writing _'Tony and Locky and the Bitter Banter'_ right this second.

Okay, so maybe it is really early in the morning and I'm pretty delusional, but that would be a good read, right? Fine, perhaps not, but in my defence I am so delusional that I am allowing myself to stay up with Potter, letting him read one of my books. People don't simply _read_ _my books_. I should behead him promptly and, preferably, cleanly – I like these pyjamas.

But, alas, my hands decide to lift my book from my lap and place it in his, so that I can numbly stare at the small flames in the fireplace, which try fruitlessly to claw away from the logs beneath as they suck them to smoke and shrivel dry. Other than this, I am yet to do so much as look at him.

But then his voice sounds, a soft tone, but harsh nonetheless against the hours of condensed quiet, and his words trigger my attention:

'"I'll not be made a soft and dull-eyed fool,  
To shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield…"'

Eyes light and thoughtful, yet heavy without sleep, he looks up from his reading of Shylock's demands for justice. My gaze narrows and lingers on his face, half green from the glowing logs, half gold from the lantern, waiting for any sign of amusement, namely his smirk, to creep into its features, but he remains unreadable. Somber.

I know what he's trying to say. He thinks that by avoiding him I am giving up and that my mind is clouded with the idea that the problem of Potter will just go away if I steer clear of him. He's right. I do feel this way and I know I am wrong to, but I'm still so embarrassed by the random urge I had to comfort him earlier on today. I should just get over it. This is all so stupid and pointless, after all, Potter is just another sarcastic twat… like me, I suppose. If anyone asks, I did not just say that, okay?

I flush and face forward again.

He closes the play over and places it on the side table over the arm of the couch. He waits, watching me, then sighs, 'so how long are you going to ignore me for?'

Leaned forward, elbows on thighs, I look down at my feet, draping a curtain of hair between his penetrating gaze and my face.

The silence drags out. I can hear the fading crackle of the cooling hearth. He's tapping his feet. And fingers – fidgeting.

Then, just as I consider excusing myself from our fun little book and conversation club, he says, 'thank you.'

My brows furrow. For ignoring him? For giving him my book?

My heads pops up, hurriedly clarifying, 'you know that's not to keep, right? I was just giving you the chance to finish reading that scene.'

A smile crooks at the corner of his mouth, then quickly vanishes as he clasps his hands restlessly, almost nervously. He takes his turn to look down as he corrects, 'no, I know. I was meaning about earlier, what you said about my brother and committing yourself to helping him get back to normal, well, as normal as James can be.' Again, the unsure smile flashes as he looks back at me. 'I hadn't meant to make you feel bad about it in any way… I thought you would be okay with joking around about it,' he explains. 'But then when I tried to tell you this at the party you ran off again… It made me think about everything… It made me realise that you're not just some indestructible body of sarcasm that can bat insults and jokes back and forth without taking any hits.'

My eyes, locked on his, start to water slightly and my neck strains against their deep, gripping green to turn away and hide the fact. It made me think about everything too.

I mean to smirk and object, 'but I'm still 99.9% sarcasm,' but it comes out as a whisper. A humorous comment spoken with no humour.

He breathes a laugh, but otherwise ignores my words, continuing, 'I suppose I had realised it before. When we were heading to Ancient Runes after talking to the paintings on Wednesday, and I wanted to ask you a question, but didn't really get to the point before you were off tackling cats, I was going to ask if you were okay…'

My eyebrows gather together, again. Okay, who is sitting next to me and why does he look and talk like Potter?

Is "everything's" affect on me really that obvious? I knew he was suspicious when Chauncey said I was all woozy on the night of the dance, but for him to know that it wasn't just from feeling ill he must have noticed something wrong with me leading up to it. Maybe it was my screaming and cowering from the giant pumpkin. That would make sense.

He nods for an answer to his past question, prompting, 'are you?'

I think of Adrian, his body racking with sobs in his dorm while I drunkenly throw my cousin's shoes into a flaming fruit downstairs. Keren and Laura, their shoulders and faces sinking as I run from the party they put together especially for me. Him, sitting before me, stripped of his charisma and showing himself as he is, whilst I remain frigid and closed, swallowing down any confessions that try to escape my mouth.

Eventually, after exhaling deeply, I manage to give a straight answer, 'I'm just _sick_ of myself.'

I press my lips, stretching my tear-crusted cheeks, and let my bloodshot eyes stray away from his awkwardly, hugging my legs up to my chest.

Saying no more on the matter, he hands me a tissue, and I timidly mouth my thanks, then he picks up the book once again, and reads from where we left off:

'"I'll not be made a soft and dull-eyed fool,  
To shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield  
To Christian intercessors. Follow not.  
I'll have no speaking, I will have my bond…"'

Wishing to read along with him, my temple finds his shoulder and the pages come into blurry view, his voice sending low vibrations from his collar bone to my ear.

I squeeze my eyes shut and dab them, dampening the tissue with the memories of this night I've spent with Potter, the glowing embers and one of Shakespeare's best.

**A/N: Hello again. Just expressing that I do not own any of the Shakespeare stuff, well duh, and the same for the Doctor Who reference (sorry, not sorry).**  
**Please let me know if you liked it! Especially the Heidi/Al stuff in the last segment, I want make sure I'm playing this out right :3  
Also, seeing as I've been adding little spurts of randomness at the end of each chapter, here's this one's: EVERYTHING HURTS. I'M SO TIRED MY ENTIRE BODY IS ACHING, BUT IT'S TOO LIGHT TO FALL ASLEEP AND TOM HIDDLESTON. TOOOOOM HIIIDDLESTOOON.**

**Bye ;***


	17. Home for the Happy, Happy Holidays

My Sixth Year: Parkinson, Pressure & Mr Al Potter

Harry Potter: Next Generation Fan Fiction

**A/N: Well hello there home-swizzles. Don't worry if this chapter seems pretty short as today you're getting a double update! Yay! And the next one is just a little different ;)  
Thank you so much for the reviews and PMs and all that stuff I love! Please keep them coming, especially for the next chapter! ;3**

**Chapter 17: Home for the Happy, Happy Holidays**

This last month has felt hazy. And not just in the sense of speed. Though, I have done a lot compared to my usual agenda of eating and reading and then eating.

I talked to Adrian. I told him how I had felt – how I had wanted more with him than he was looking for and how his dismissal of that had rocked me. And how I've been feeling recently – guilty, irrevocably sorry, ready to be there if he ever needs me to be a less ginger, more insane Rose substitute, but not as a fully committed friend. More like a close acquaintance, which is probably all we've ever truly been. As much as I wish I could be another Rose for him, there are some things I can't bring myself to do, not even for him, or even with ice cream bribery.

I still feel bad about it all, even though he was completely understanding and we're now on our usual terms again. I can't help it. But I'm glad we talked. As it so turns out, it does make things better. Funny that, isn't it? I get the feeling he'll be taking me up on the Rose substitute offer soon though; at the Hufflepuff Vs Ravenclaw game Tessa Chang, the Ravenclaw Seeker, was hit by bludger on the head. She had swung sideways on her broom, hanging by only one leg, raven pigtails dangling. She had a concussion for a few days, but she still can't play due to her dislocated right leg – just a minor hindrance. And so Rose, being the Ravenclaw Team Captain, is just a few screams short of setting fire to the Quidditch pitch from trying to find Chang a replacement. I think Adrian will want a break from Rose's fraying thread type of madness at some point when we get back from the Holidays, even if that means taking on the rabid dinosaur type of madness for a while.

On top of successfully commentating my second Quidditch match, I also finished my ten weeks of supervised study, but instead of getting my free periods back those are now the periods I have my Apparition classes on. Rather than having one class a week for twelve weeks, the past few generations of sixth and seventh years have had three classes a week for four. This year we've had them second and last period on a Tuesday and first period on a Thursday.

I think I've been doing pretty well. With three of those weeks endured, wanting to blow my brains out from putting up with our cutesy, sugar-coated instructor, Ms Masie-Belle, I have only splinched myself once, which I was actually thankful for because it was a horrific zit. There haven't been any serious injuries so far. Though, during the third lesson, Malfoy managed to lose the back of his trousers. Most girls blushed. I snorted with raging laughter. It felt good. I hadn't laughed like that in quite a while. Of course, Malfoy had been nonplussed by his tight boxer shorts being on display, shrugging it off as "letting people live their fantasies" and assuming that "there's no denying you all wish the pants went too". But the best part of it all was that Potter then apparated straight into the remnants of his trousers. It was beautiful.

Most of the times I've laughed at him about it, he's not been bothered, commenting, 'when do I not have Scorpius' trousers on my face.' We'd paused and looked at each other awkwardly for a few seconds, unsure of what on wizard earth that was supposed to mean. But he didn't appreciate me shouting and cackling about it when we were following his brother around the library yet again. Which was as boring as the first time. Though this time I didn't create a beanbag explosion, as much as I would have liked to, because we couldn't get ourselves kicked out before we got a chance to see what James had been reading. Once he left, pocketing his wand and sacred notebook, we checked. All of the books were studies on strange, mysterious deaths, like magical crime scenes, and books on ancient magic. But when we flicked to the pages we thought we'd seen him perusing, they were blank – browning parchment, crisply cut and inkless. The only barely helpful scrap of information we managed to draw was that he was definitely looking into dark magic; in one of the older Ministry Encyclopaedias he'd been looking at, the blank pages, according to the glossary at the back, had been about "_vidvesopenso_ – Class 0, Dark Arts – Strictly Forbidden". So we're guessing it's pretty bad.

Other than the whole "Blondie's bum cloth on his face" thing, I haven't had much more fuel to power my Potter mocking than usual. If anything, I grudgingly owe him thanks:

'"I'll not be made a soft and dull-eyed fool,  
To shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield…"'

Do you know just how consistently long I've had those words stuck in my head? When I was lying awake last night, trunk packed except for fresh clothes, my toothbrush, hairbrush and that book, I started to flick through the pages of the prose. Every time I did so, no matter how fast they zipped under my thumb, those words, Act III, Scene 3, Page 125, lines fourteen and fifteen, stood out like a blade in the light. All because of Potter. Ever since that night in the common room, Shylock's lines have echoed and echoed through my head, not in the character's stern voice as I imagine it, nor in my own voice as I read it, but in Potter's soft tones as he spoke it from his shoulder to my right ear and his lips to my left. After a few weeks of finding my mind religiously returning to that night, that peaceful moment, those _exact _words, they didn't just affect my usually drowsy memory. They drove me – pushed me. I thought of those words, the context in which Potter had used them – me avoiding him – and how things had worked out when I'd just opened myself up to someone. When I confronted and bettered one of my problems instead of forcing them down. It made me realise that it was about time I grew up, not completely because grownups are boring, but in terms of my sulking over Adrian, it was time to confront him and confess my feelings and reasoning for leaving him confusedly hanging.

Those words have now worked out for me twice. Perhaps we all could do with this sort of determination. Though, finding a source of motivation other than food is not the only thing that's surprised me about myself since my birthday night. You know me, I'm clumsy and silly and essentially like a tall toddler with boobs, so you know that I am also the human embodiment of denial and regret. The sort of things I regret are times of embarrassment or when I get myself caught up in a situation I don't want to be in, so, basically, every waking second I spend with Potter. And so, I am sure you will understand why I am so unbelievably baffled as to why I don't regret the night he read to me. I have plenty of reason not to regret it – I was tired, upset, delusional and in knots, and I just wanted comfort, a body to curl up to. But that body was Potter. I should be scared and hitting myself for being so weak in front of him, for letting him get close to me, but I am not in the slightest. _I_ curled up to him. _I _fell asleep on his shoulder, to the sound of his voice. And it wasn't so bad.

Stop judging me.

So now you know what I mean by this whole month feeling hazy. I've been busy, I've been sleepy, I've felt dreamily lighter with the burden of my guilt for Adrian being lifted, and I've been confused by my sudden peace of mind. It's as though I've just been watching me live out the days, as though in a dream, everything out of focus.

But now I can kiss that peace of mind goodbye and welcome back my old buddy bitterness back. Why? Because I'm going home for the happy, happy holidays.

As you can tell, I am utterly ecstatic to be returning to my creepily pristine, overly large house to endure Christmas dinner with a brother who would eat it solely with his face if he were allowed to, a little sister who insists on using plastic cutlery so to not hurt the _dead_ turkey and my parents. Don't get me started on the parents. The mum and dad. The wanker and the beauty queen. The ex Hufflepuff who has now switched his loyalty to his work, ignoring his eldest daughter whenever he is actually around, because of her career choice and lack of eloquence, and the goddess of class who spends so much of her time fussing over her younger children that she doesn't take the time to actually talk to her other daughter unless she's giving her chores or correcting her appearance to the suitable standards. Basically, they're happy with a son to carry on the family name and a polite, mannerly, perfectly pretty daughter, so their oddball firstborn serves no great purpose to them. She wants to be writer. She wears holey jeans, ratty shirts, beanies and big boots and she actually likes to act towards people the way they deserve instead of pretending to be someone she's not, having "Smalltalk" with them and then waiting to give her honest opinion to their backs. She wants to be herself. They neither know nor seem to care who that person is. "Herself" doesn't fit the criteria, so they ignore her.

At my dad's work parties, when I was little, I used to admire the way my mother spoke, waving her dainty hands, her soft eyes, soft voice, and kind smile. Same with my dad. Even if the words he spoke were one of his embarrassing jokes, I liked to watch his eyes light up and hear his warming chuckle. I still do sometimes, but now it makes me more sad than anything; it reminds me of the way they really are, underneath all of the fake crap. It all started when my dad became a lawyer for the Ministry, having left Granger Law. We moved to a new estate filled with people who also worked there. Stuffy people with ignorantly high standards. And so, over the years they've adapted to their surroundings. They're still kind people with good intentions; they've just got lost on their way, taking their love for me with them. I tell myself this when I'm at home, so that I can actually try to have conversations with them without smashing something. But when I'm away at Hogwarts it just gets worse – like usual, I think too much, remember the negatives and grow bitter. Then when I return home, like now, I've built a freshly constructed sturdy wall between them and me.

I never used to think I would say this, but I want the father who said "shindigs" back. As I start cringing at the thought of my dad now showing the Minister of Magic his best Rick Astley moves, my attention is drawn to three red coiling hairs floating to the train floor in front of me, shining gold and orange where the grey winter light hits them.

I turn to see Rose next to me, crazedly flapping her hands to free them of her loose hairs.

Laura looks up from her book, _Quidditch: A Science_, and shakes her head, reprimanding, 'honestly, Rose! In a house such as Ravenclaw there must be plenty of quick-witted, agile students who would like to join the team. Must you really, quite literally, tear your hair out over this?!'

'YES!' the balding ginger shouts with wide eyes, jolting me fully from my dreamy state. She takes a deep breath to calm herself, though it just takes her from manically angry to anxious, hands trembling. She straightens up in her seat. 'I'm sorry,' she says, articulate as always, but shaky, 'but our first game of the season is in only a month and the team has no Seeker substitutes, so I'm being expected to find a Seeker as great as Tessa, train them up, get them working with the team and make sure we all get enough practise together before the game against Slytherin, all on top of my own homework, with no volunteers and with the holidays in the way!' Her voice now dangerously high and her breathing laboured, Laura moves over to our side of the compartment and sits on her other side, stroking her back.

Whereas I just turn back to the window after commenting, 'I know, damn Chirstmas…'

I hear the compartment door wheels trundle as it slides open and the huffing and puffing that signals the return of an unhappy Keren. With Laura still comforting Rose, I spot Keren's dark, wild curls flopping out of the corner of my eye, her having lain down face-first on the padded bench opposite, her knees bent back so that she can fit and her flowery converse trainers kicking.

After a few minutes of boredly watching our friend incoherently mutter to herself, Laura warily asks, 'how did it go?'

Keren yells into the seat cushion, 'I was right! Everything I feared was right! I was no more than an adequate girl to snog whenever he felt like it!'

'You know, I was just thinking I'd quite like to punch someone,' I casually muse. 'Can I punch him?'

She shakes her head and lifts it, wiping at her mascara smudged cheeks.

Laura, appearing conflicted between comforting Rose and Keren, demands, 'did he really say that?'

Righting herself to a sitting position and sniffing, Keren confirms, 'he said, "I didn't think we were serious". So, in boy language, that'll be a "he sure did, mate".'

'What a prat; he knew you liked him from the fireworks party in summer and thought he'd just take advantage of you…' I trail off.

He was playing her like she's not even a person. Like I am with Potter and this bet. This bet that should not have been made. If it weren't for the bet I wouldn't be caught up in all of this Potter nonsense, James and Al alike. It needs to end.

As my mind spirals downwards, I muffledly hear Laura say, 'Louis should know better.'

Rose, who had been mouthing possible Ravenclaw Seeker candidates to herself, springs from her seat and bolts out of the compartment, shrieking, 'Louis!' in realisation.

Laura returns to her seat next to Keren and hugs her arm around her shoulders.

The defeated girl takes the bow from her mane and fiddles with it in her lap. Eventually she sighs, 'why can't all guys be more like Rodrigo…'

I follow the direction her panda-eyes are looking, to my collection of Shakespeare books beside me. 'You mean Romeo?' I correct.

She either doesn't hear or ignores this, continuing, 'it's so difficult to find a decent guy nowadays and the ones that you do find are already taken.'

'I'm still not seeing how you classed Martin Thatcher as a "decent guy",' Laura grumbles, withdrawing her arm.

Keren squeals in defence, 'he's nice! He could have been your Romero-'

'Romeo!' I clutch the book to my chest like a nun praying to god for mercy on her friend's soul.

'-but no, after all of my efforts, he asks you out and you say "NO"!' Keren rants.

They both grumpily fold their arms and Laura opens her mouth to reply, but then the train whistles and I careen forwards, them into the back of their seats, as the train starts to slow and brakes.

I have no need to scan the platform of awaiting families for mine. I could spot my radiant mother, tall, glossy black hair pinned up, in an emerald green silk blouse and a black pencil skirt, from a mile away.

In turn, she doesn't scan the train. She doesn't need to. She's already found Marie.

While everyone else reaches to the shelves for their trunks, I watch her wave.


	18. Potter's Point of View

My Sixth Year: Parkinson, Pressure & Mr Al Potter

Harry Potter: Next Generation Fan Fiction

**A/N: Second half, woo! I thought I'd try something different and let you get to know more about Potter as Heidi saw him on her birthday day night, from the man-child himself – the Potter behind the smirk, if you will. I'm not going to lie, I enjoyed this :3 PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU DID TOO BECAUSE I TRIED MY BEST AND WANT TO SEE IF IT'S WORKED OUT AND STUFF AND OKAY.**

**Make sure to read the previous chapter if you haven't already as today's a double update!**

**Chapter 18: Potter's Point of View**

The train lurches to a stop by Platform 9 ¾, a-blur with many familiar faces, and Scorpius and Alex lower their trunks down from the rack above. I dare not stand though, and let my shaking limbs announce that I've been terrified this whole journey. I have no fear of trains or anything – my current state is not about what could be missing from the train, it's about _who is_ missing from the train.

James isn't coming home for Christmas. Lily and I tried talking to him, our mum sent him furious letters, but he'd just said that he was staying to keep serving his detention for the "Quidditch accident".

What's it like to fall from the sky? Not pleasant. You suffocate on your own breath, left to tumble knowing there's no way to save yourself and no help to hold onto, leaving your insides behind as you drop.

What's it like to be pushed from the sky by your own brother? That, on the other hand, is a completely different question. But if you then go on to have that same brother call his demoting you from hundreds of feet in the air a "Quidditch accident", it's a little bit beyond mildly irritating.

I should be blindingly fuming. But I'm not. I'm scared.

It's not as though we even got along when he was himself, but Christmas still won't be the same without him. His not being here, blundering onto the platform tickling Lily, has confirmed the worst; if there is a stitch of my brother still inside him, he is powerless. Whoever, whatever, possesses my brother is in full control and now has two nice and quiet weeks at Hogwarts to act on his research. The only people looking into his strange behaviour are Heidi and I. We won't be there to stop them, whatever they're planning.

I'm frightened about keeping this all a secret from my parents and Lily. I'm scared of what is happening to my brother. Most of all, I'm terrified that either of us will die before we get a chance to correct our terms with one another.

James is my older brother; I only ever wanted to be like him. He was a cheeky, arrogant sod who constantly wrestled me, played Quidditch with me and told me all about how cool Hogwarts was. We would always quarrel, but back then it was just over stupid things like the toy in the cereal box or some teasing comment he made about me. Then, when it came my turn to start school at Hogwarts he took the opportunity to tease me about the possibility of being sorted into Slytherin, just for a laugh and for a reaction, like usual. But when I actually _did_ get sorted into Slytherin, the Sorting Hat having ignored my protests, his teasing lost its joking manner. He was serious. He turned his nose up at me. He still talked to me, not like he once did, but he would still have short, half-hearted conversations with me. He could still bring himself to look at me.

Until I eventually lost it. I was sick of hating myself. I didn't want to hate who I was, but every time I told myself that I didn't need to feel that way James came along to reinforce the former opinion. To him, I was a disappointment. And so, my younger-brotherly instinct to be like him not having faded, I was a disappointment to myself. I was one angst-driven child, but can you blame me? The day I sent him flying into a wall was the day I couldn't take it anymore. I didn't want to feel so constantly terrible. I wanted my fake smiles to be genuine for a change, so I did the only thing that was left to do. I severed my relationship with my brother. I'm not going to lie, in that moment, it was an easy decision. He said horrible, horrible things – that I was growing up the same way as the man who tried to kill our father, who did kill our grandparents. That I brought shame to our great name. I don't care about honour and all of that crap, but I am _not_ a disgrace to my loved ones.

Finishing what was left of our family relationship allowed me to move on. I'd thought that would be the hardest part. And it did use to be… Until all of this happened – until I was sucked into a whirlwind of ghost-student and cat-student possession, Class 0 dark magic and… rabid dinosaurs.

I don't think I should even let myself go there; the train will leave with me still on it, caught up in my jumbled thoughts.

I peer out of the finger-smudged window, spotting Alex leave with his sister for the taxis, not bothering to say goodbye for knowing that we will see one another soon, probably tomorrow. Over to the left, as one of the few remaining families, my dad stands, hands in pockets, with my mum, arms crossed, as my sister approaches them, her perfectly straight red hair swinging. They ask her something and she shrugs and shakes her head, leading them all to search along the train windows.

I duck swiftly before my dad's gaze, identical to mine, can reach me, admiring the luxuriously chewing-gum-plastered underside of the little window table.

Behind me, I hear someone clear their throat. I turn and look up to find Scorpius leaning against the doorframe in his silvery blazer, white t-shirt and pale, undoubtedly expensive, jeans, trunk at his feet and eyebrows questioningly raised.

'Coming?' he smirks. A trait I've found myself mirroring frequently due to the sheer amount of time I've spent with him, if not just to annoy Heidi.

'Err… I think I'm going to wait a while,' I murmur, not really knowing how to excuse myself.

Scorpius being Scorpius, he shrugs, 'okay,' leaving me to wonder whether he knows my reasoning or if he simply isn't going to ask.

However, before he can walk away, I call to him, 'I'll see you soon though, right?'

Again, he smirks, 'well I can't very well let you live without my face for too long. That would be cruel.'

I grin as he leaves, immediately turning back to glance at the window to check my family isn't looking before hoisting my trunk down and crawling out of the compartment on the worn red carpet, pushing the heavy case in front of me.

Not feeling ready to face my family just yet, I head for the farthest away exit at the back of the train. But as I reach the halfway mark my trunk hits something hard and I fall forwards.

I land carefully on my sturdy trunk and look up to see a pair of stunned blue-green eyes right in front of me, tinted with browns and highlighted by the natural light streaming through the windows; like lake water; round but with delicate shape, and surrounded by sweeping dull blonde lashes; all light, intricate circles, curls and curves, like two paisley leaf patterns, but very much alive, oozing an inquisitive energy… which is not happy.

Heidi, my obstacle as always, lain on her trunk as I am on mine, glares.

'Hey, I'm crawling here!' she sharply whispers.

'Me too, small world, right?' I hushedly tease, pointing out the obvious and waiting for her button nose to crinkle and her butterfly-like lips to tighten and quirk up at the corner like they always do when I smirk. I don't know if it's a wry smile or her sub-consciously contradicting herself – a sign that she does in fact like the origin of the name "Smirky".

Her features oblige to my expectations, leaf eyes still narrowed, her pupils dilating like a plughole swallowing the water of her irises.

She huffs and her feathery hair tickles my cheek. Her warm breath brushes my face against the cold flitting in from the open carriage doors. Which, I'm guessing, won't be open for much longer. What a trick that would be, getting stuck on the train back to Hogwarts with Heidi. She would blame me, of course, and most likely attack me, but it would be funny. She may be mad but I could do with her amusing manner right now rather than the sickening madness that's coming over me. I would be distracting her, stalling her, until the train left if it weren't for my parents and sister. They've already lost James for the holidays, maybe forever, not that they know that though. Plus, I can't leave my dad to fend for himself, alone in the house with my mum and Lily – what's he ever done to me?

My eyes refocus, leaving my thoughts for reality; Heidi rolling, wonky-beanie-d, off her trunk and flopping onto the floor with an indignant grunt. They say people change. I sincerely hope she doesn't.

I follow in suit, except I keep my dignity intact by landing on my toes and hands before lowering myself. Not that she cares about falling. She probably couldn't care less about what I think of her; an opinion just as lost to myself.

But then, when I pull her beanie from her head, trying to get her worked up, she just looks up at me, timid, cheeks and nose tinted red, eyes panicked.

My brows furrow above the ridge of my nose, something I find myself doing a lot with this "oddity", as I have previously dubbed her. She's barmy, but that's not all that's strange about her. She has a vulnerability to her that's untellable until she chooses to show it, like on that night I stayed up in the common room just to let her continue sleeping on my shoulder, or until she's caught in deep thought and it shows on her face, like now.

I'm always wondering what goes on in her mind. Before I can ask, however, she scrambles to her feet and scurries away with her trunk.

Leaving me confused, as always, on the floor, holding her beanie.

**A/N: You like, eh? (I've decided I'm Italian now).**


	19. The Girl in Grey

My Sixth Year: Parkinson, Pressure & Mr Al Potter

Harry Potter: Next Generation Fan Fiction

**A/N: Hello! It's really early morning, again, so I apologise if there are any mistakes. Thank you so much for 3000 views and 40 reviews! I'm so happy and grateful for your response :D  
Once Heidi ran off, there were many different ways I could take it, but I've chosen this one so that you can get to know Heidi more and everything that comes with her.  
I hope you enjoy this and please do get back to me! **

**IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY READ THE LAST TWO CHAPTERS, PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU DO. The view count is suggesting that people have been jumping to the last chapter without realising there's another new one before that. Just clarifying XD**

**Chapter 19: The Girl in Grey**

Despite Ray being at the bottom of my room, his cage cloaked in darkness by my school robes, I can still hear his beak sharply clacking and clanging on the metal bars. In my bed, I roll onto my back _again_ and shove silk cushions to my ears. But, _again_, it makes no difference – the grumbling coos in his throat, his chirps, hoots and the damn _clanging_ are still perfectly audible.

Growling, I slump to my feet and stomp over to him, topping my bed head with more cushions. I whip my robes from the cage and he just stares at me, beak now motionless on the metal as I glower at him.

'_What do you want_?' I hiss, not as effectively as I would have liked due to my recently awoken state, my voice ragged and croaky, but well enough.

He waits and watches me for a few more seconds, then starts gnawing again, making the high squawking trills in the back of his throat that make me want to embed his beak into a tree.

I gruffly snarl in frustration, open the cage, fling a pellet at his face and slam it shut. After covering the aggravatingly sassy creature once more, I bound back over to my bed and flop onto the white sheets in a shower of multicoloured cushions, each patterned with delicate flowers and generally not to my liking at all.

When we first got this house, my mum wanted to keep the place nice and reasonably coordinated, and although she eventually gave up on me and my posters covering every inch of the boring walls, some of her stamp on my room still remains, like the cushions and the elegant white furniture, such as the dressing table that is only used to stack my books on.

My room screams 'NERD' and I love it; the books lining my walls like a papery city of skyscrapers, split down the middle so that I can get to my window seat to lounge and read them; the comic book covers, collectables, chocolate frogs cards, band posters and gig tickets all forming my wallpaper; the box of costumes in the corner for when I make Perry act out Shakespeare scenes with me; the unit filed with all of my records, magical and muggle kind alike; the parchment-strewn desk topped with Potions supplies for my own experiments; the scorch marks on the ceiling above my desk from said experiments; and then, last but not least, the canyon of clothes lining the room to confirm that I am most definitely of the teenage species.

And because I am so, I curl up, cocooning myself in my covers, and let my eyes flutter shut against the daylight trying break out around the edges of my blackout curtains. But just as my body starts to grow heavy, my mind slipping away, I hear thunderous footfall storming down the hallway. I barely have time to wince before my little brother erupts into my room and pounces on top of me.

'Wake up! Wake up! Mummy says wake up!' Perry yells, springing around the bed so that I bounce around helplessly like a limbless potato (because, you know, some potatoes have limbs).

I groan in protest, kicking myself free of the covers, and tug him down by the ankle, tickling him and dodging his flying feet.

'Oh does she now?' I question mockingly, wriggling my fingers around his neck while he giggles and kicks.

Whipping his head around to trap my hands, fluffy dark hair wagging, he squeals, 'she did, she did, she did! I swear!'

'You swear on _what_?' I tease, pulling his little form into my basket of crossed legs.

Suddenly, his laughs stop and he turns solemn. Adorably serious, piercing blue eyes wide, he promises, 'I swear on the pancakes mummy made downstairs.'

I sharply inhale and no more is said. Pushing and racing one another, we scrabble from my room, along the red carpeted corridor, down the shallow spiral of marble stairs and into the glistening black and white kitchen, slippers sliding on the polished tiles.

My mum swiftly turns from the stove; her blue eyes so pale and alert that I fear the Holy Spirit's fire would shoot from them if Perry were in danger. Other than the chance of him skidding too far and bumping into something, he currently isn't. But it's my mum – to her Perry is always in danger and it is always my fault.

'Careful!' she softly reprimands, stopping Perry before he can get within five feet of counter. 'He could have hurt himself, you should know better Heidi. You're sixteen, not a child!'

'Good morning to you too,' I mumble as I walk right past her and hop onto one of the breakfast bar stools, reaching for a pancake from the platter in the middle of the counter and placing it on one of the stacked up plates to claim as my own. My precious.

My mum crouches down to cuddle Perry and smiles warmly at him as he squirms free and scampers over to the pancakes. She returns to the stove to flip a half-golden pancake over. While she works, she says, 'I'm taking you into town once you've eaten and dressed.'

Oblivious to her eyes on me, I munch stroppily on my pancake and syrup, brows ruffling together as they try to become one.

'That means you, Heidi,' she sighs in annoyance before turning back to the pan, checking the underside of the pancake and carrying it over to add to the pile between my brother and I.

'_Me_?' I ask incredulously, bemusedly scowling up at her.

I thought she'd meant Perry. After all, even he would have more interest in going to the shops than me. The sweet shops, that is.

'Yes, _you_,' she confirms, turning the heat on the stove off and wandering over to the door. She calls upstairs for my sister to join us.

Noting Marie's dainty feet tapping down the stairs, I enquire breathlessly, and cluelessly, '_why_?'

My mum grimaces at the few crumbs I hailed onto the daylight-glistening counter, then answers, 'because we are hosting a New Year's celebration tonight and we need to find you an appropriate dress.'

Glaring at her as she waters one of her herbal plants on the windowsill and flicks her wand, causing a cloth to float over to me and mop up my spat crumbs, I point out, 'I've been here for over a week, why are you just mentioning this now?'

'Hello sweetie,' she smiles at Marie as she traipses into the room and sits in a triangle with my brother and me, her kitten, Tillie, following closely behind her; the enchanted ears of her bunny slippers wiggling and wagging. Then the warmth vanishes for impatience. My mum reasons, 'because we didn't think you'd care!'

My voice rises in pitch incredulously as I say, 'well of course I don't _care_ about the stupid party, but if it involves me I need to know!'

Again, she sighs tiredly, rubbing her smooth, pale forehead, and says finally, 'just finish your breakfast, Heidi.'

…

Stupid holidays. I should have stayed at Hogwarts. It's not like I would have been missed. I could have just stayed on the train when I had the chance. Before I started overanalysing certain… things… again and ran off. I couldn't help it. My mind likes to go places that I know will upset me purely because of curiosity. I was terrified by how close I was to Al and how completely and utterly comfortable I was with it. And then I started going over all of his features again. And "Al", since when has he been "Al" to me, he was always Potter, and then there's the whole falling asleep on his shoulder thing that I _still_ don't regret, and the saving his life thing – I'll never understand that desperate urge that overcame me – and this constant worry I have for him and his brother and the strong sympathy I feel for him and, and… I just started thinking about it all at the same time, that time being when my face was an inch from his, and I couldn't take it. I was both mortified and frightened. So I ran for it. I even left my beanie, feeling too embarrassed to go back for it once I saw him holding it, kneeling on the train floor like a hurt puppy.

I can't get the image of the way I left him out of my head: him pulling himself to his knees, tousled hair, brow furrowed, eyes baring that shine that I've seen before when he's spoken about his brother, sad and confused, watching me leave, lightly holding my beanie in one hand. Ugh, this is all too weird! Over all the years I've known him I have never had any issues like this with him! I shouldn't have made this bet with Keren. That's what gave me the idea to talk to him in the first place, and the opportunity to get him and Laura together through helping him with James is what got me caught up in all of that as well. As soon as we get back to Hogwarts, this bet is ending. It's too late to reverse all of these problems that have followed it, but I can stop it before more come along. As for the current Potter problems, I don't know what to do. I can't talk to him about it because that would just be awkward and I don't even know what's wrong in the first place, so I wouldn't know what to tell him… "Hey, so lately your attractiveness has just properly dawned on me and I would appreciate it if you would stop doing that thing with your face. Also, would you care to explain what we are? We don't seem to be friends, we don't seem to hate each other, I most certainly do not _like_ you, but there's the thing with your face and the fact that my chest tightens when I imagine that no one's hand or wand had arisen to save you when you fell…"

And then they come to me, Portia's words. Act III, Scene 2, Page 113:

"There's something tells me- but it is not love-  
I would not lose you; and you know yourself  
Hate counsels not in such a quality."

But then she and Bassanio…

I shiver, convulse and strip down to my underwear. I run over to my turn table, place down one of my The View records and place the needle at the second track – '5Rebbeccas', one of my favourites – before grabbing a fresh towel from my cupboard and running for the shower. I must wash away these thoughts. From now on today is a Potter-free day.

After showering, shoving on jeans, a jumper reading "Marvel-ous" (using the comic logo) and a red scarf, and a sufficient amount of playing the air guitar and jumping around my room, I braid my hair to the side and leave it to dry on its own. I head over to my right bedpost and reach distractedly for my beanie, but my hand finds air. I look down my outstretched arm and remember. It's not there, Heidi. However, before my pre-shower thoughts can crawl back over me, I shake them off, throwing myself into some good old screaming along with the music.

My ears tune back into the white noise to find 'Shock Horror' playing.

I pounce onto my bed, hollering, 'I FEEL SORRY FOR YA MAN, YOU'VE FORGOTTEN HOW TO CLAP YER HANDS.'

I clap my hands to the vinyl, then jump to my knees for the guitar solo.

But of course my mum would decide to interrupt me now. I'm not embarrassed – I was in the zone!

Before I can make some snarky, sarcastic comment like, 'what is it? Or are you not going to tell me, because I wouldn't _care_?' she purposefully struts over to my turn table, lifts the needle away and turns it off.

'We're going now,' she says, pulling her black leather gloves on while two brushes swipe at the lint on her coat. 'The Ministry car is here.'

As I strop in her lead, she swishes her wand and the brushes stop then soar back down the balconied hallway to her and my dad's master bedroom at the end. Trudging down the stairs in my worn lace-up boots I notice, Melody Marchand, one of our neighbours, a perfectly groomed Beauxbatons student home for the holidays, standing by the door.

Brown hair in a low ribbon-tied ponytail and white blouse tucked into her baby blue skirt, she smiles at my mum as she hands her the list of basic rules for watching over Perry and Marie.

As my mum says goodbye, "thank you so much for offering to babysit… blah-blah", I crunch along the stones of the driveway to the mysterious looking car. Brown sleet is splattered up the car wheels and lower body and frost is trying to spider along the black-tinted windows.

We have a Ministry car of our own, my dad's, but he takes it to work, so, being an official Ministry family, we tend to just call them up like a taxi service for visiting places and going to King's Cross and Diagon Alley. I preferred the old models they had – dark green and rustic. Now they have these expensive-looking, spy-like cars, all black and silver, but, as the driver emerges from his door to open mine for me, I notice with relief that they still wear the funny emerald uniforms. I suppose they eventually had to change the cars in order to blend in, or Minister Shacklebolt had some childhood fantasy of having cool cars to live out.

Peering through the darkened glass, I scan the large, yet small wizarding estate of the muggles' Merley Park, Saddlewood Court, searching for changes that have taken place since the summer. The water fountain is no longer streaming in the centre of the estate, the water in the stone bowl having turned into an ice rink for birds, and the flowers surrounding it are withered and brown and frosted over like the grass. Sludgy car tracks are trailed around the central icy garden, on the red bricked, circular court. And then there are the six massive white houses, which used to be stables, but now host five rich families. There are still remnants of the estate's previous use in the houses' design; they all have wooden-beamed porches protruding from the front, hooks for lanterns sticking out by the doors. The two ground floor windows on either side of the porch still have wooden shutters, which I used to think we're nicer when they were faded and chipped, but then the estate owner – one of the residents, Mr Marchand – thought they weren't classy enough so he repainted them black to match the black and white theme of the houses. They all have a spacious ground floor, balconied first floor, a large attic, most of which have been converted for various other uses by the owners, and a basement, all used as wine cellars so it would seem.

Starting from the hidden entrance in the hedge, which surrounds the entire estate, thick and tall, the layout of Saddlewood Court is like a clock face, the fountain being the centre and the entrance being six o'clock. At twelve o'clock there's a narrow tree-shrouded pathway leading out to the park, which isn't visible to muggles, for those of us who have pets to walk. At seven o'clock, there're the Parkinson's, Paloma, her mother Pansy and occasionally her mum's boyfriend. Between them and us, at nine o'clock, live the Marchand's – the estate owner, Reginald, his wife Marian and their daughter Melody – their stuffy, squeaky-clean stature clear in their freshly painted exterior walls. And then at eleven o'clock there's our house, the silver plate on the black door engraved with "Davis-Macmillan". The Estad's – Adalbert, his wife Harriet and their, rather hot but scary, son Veleik – live at the other side of the little walkway, at one o'clock, their serious and stern attitude screaming through the black curtains in every window and the flower beds in the lawn being replaced for paving stones. The Hooker's live at three o'clock, their flashy car gleaming in their newly installed glass garage. Terry, his wife Carol, their son Scott and their daughter Daisy – every member of the rowdy family lives up to their name. Finally, at five o'clock, there's the empty house. Last time I was here it was for sale, but now the sign hammered into the grass has been plastered over with "On Hold". Maybe it needs more construction?

I brush off the musing, not really caring about what ignorant band of rich arseholes move in next. They'll just join the bitchy family.

Bored, I press my chilly, pink nose to the window and watch a drop of water start to run down the stone M, for Ministry, in the fountain, marking this as a Ministry worker's estate, and then freeze before it can reach the icy pool below.

Then, finally, my mum trots down the driveway path – kicking the stones I'd disrupted back into place on either side – and slides into the front of the car, apologising to the driver, who just clears his throat impatiently and gruffly nods. He starts up the engine and it rumbles like a regular car, but as he turns the roundabout of the court I don't feel the vibrations. Instead it feels like the car is almost hovering, smooth and airy; a positive side effect from the enchantments cast on it. He drives towards the bare curve of bewitched hedge, the only green remaining in our wintery hidden home, and keeps going until the veins of the leaves are visible. And still he doesn't stop. He drives straight through the hedge, but the branches don't crack fall apart to let the car break through, they bend swiftly and accordingly as soon as the headlights are close to brushing the tips of the leaves, spiralling out into a tunnel.

And then we're off.

We fly past muggle activity participants at the park, all geared up and ready for the outdoors despite the slippery weather. And that's all I get to see before the park is gone. We're blazing down the road so fast, literally – purple fire delicately trails a path for us ahead, lingering to melt and evaporate any ice and sleet away before quickly vanishing. No smoke. No traces. Not that the few muggle drivers challenging the roads could see it anyway.

The driver chuckles as he spots a confused man driving a grit dispensing truck, crawling way behind. But the amusement quickly vanishes and he returns to looking like he hates life.

You probably think my mum and I mad (well you _know_ I am), just sitting here, bored, maybe twiddling our fingers or tapping our chins every now and then as we break the very idea of speed limits, soaring through a path of fire. But this is just our average Monday.

As we cross the River Stour and turn into central Wimbourne, the driver takes us straight down the strip of shops and turns right at one of the trinket and home furniture ones, coming to a smooth halt, having slowed down for the sake of watchful muggles, outside Salamander: The Good Cook's Shop.

My mum tips the driver and I climb out of the car, glancing longingly over my shoulder at Gullivers Bookshop, home to a vast array of comics and books and even second hand records. I start to subconsciously wander in its direction, but then my mum is already out of the car, grabbing my arm and pulling me down the alleyway, her high-heeled boots clacking.

'Maybe another time,' she says, purposefully striding towards 'Chrissie's Clothing', a small muggle dress shop overrun with pastel frills and bows and all things horrifying.

The wooden wind chime above the door announces our entrance, causing Madge, a constantly bored middle aged woman with sunken brown eyes, each lid lined with a flick of neon green, obviously dyed, choppy blonde hair and the yellowing teeth of a smoker, to look up from her magazine.

My mum struts up to the counter, still keeping a hold of my arm incase I try to run for my remaining ounce of dignity, with her tall, slim model-like form fitted classily in her pale grey coat, black gloves and slim trousers.

Madge, the Squib, scowls up at her reproachfully, repelled by her presence; her magic, her elegance and beauty. 'Can I help you?' she falsely smiles, deepening the purple creases under both of her eyes and showing off the browning edges of each of her teeth.

My mum smiles bittersweetly and I grimace as I recall the amount of times I myself use that very same smile – seriously, it's exactly the same. It's creepy.

She holds up her Ministry ID and opens one side of her jacket to reveal her wand in the inner pocket. 'We're here to see Chrissie,' she keeps smiling, teeth dazzlingly white. 'She's expecting us.'

With a further scowl, Madge wheels over in her chair to the empty clothes rack diagonally behind her. She takes the pen from behind her ear and writes straight onto the wall behind the metal frame:

'A Mrs Davis-Macmillan?'

As soon as she finishes, the writing fades, momentarily indenting the wall with its letters as it sinks through the surface.

I shift impatiently, wanting this to be over as soon as possible.

A few seconds later, writing in a completely different hand bubbles into place on the wall:

'Send her in!'

Madge draws a C on the wall and then turns a loose screw in the clothing rail twice anticlockwise.

The C bubbles like before, but it doesn't sink and settle like the previous messages did. The space on the wall behind the clothes rack squirms and shifts from the C outwards. It melts away, running down to the floor, and then rises around the frame of the rail to then solidify.

The clothes rack is now an opening into a completely different shop – the real shop, a witch shop – with Chrissie Leeson, a young, blue-haired Metamorphmagus designer, waving through at us with one tan hand and holding a long satin gown in the other.

Help.

…

I hear my mum pounding on the door, demanding for me to hurry up, but I'm too scared to move. I cower on the floor up against the end of my bed, naked save for underpants.

I can't do this. I won't. I-

'Heidi! People will be arriving in _half an hour_!' my mum yells outside my room, probably scraping her manicured nails against the wood from wanting to get in and make me look reasonably human.

I pick up the death contraption and turn it over and around in my hands with no clue where to start.

How does one even begin to… _fathom_…

My mum's fist thumps harshly and abruptly, rattling the door against its frame. I jump and drop the device.

'Merlin's sake, Heidi! It's just a bra!' she shrieks.

I hear Perry giggling, 'isn't that what girl's use to hold up their-'

'Go help your dad downstairs,' my mum distractedly commands. I can almost sense her rubbing her temples, trying to find any patience whatsoever.

My brother, his voice a distant chirp, shouts as he runs down the hallway, 'I sometimes wear Heidi's on my head!'

Okay, I shall be locking them away from now on.

'Please just put it on,' my mum says, her voice considerably calmer.

I pull the daunting thing back towards me, calling to her as I examine it, 'this is _not_ a bra – this is a satanic vice of straps!'

'Yes, well, step into the satanic vice of straps, pull it up to your chest, clasp it and be quick about it, please,' she says, sternly, her voice straining.

Reluctantly, shakily, I do as she says, though with a lot more stumbling, tripping, hopping and knocking things over than she had suggested. I walk through to the full length mirror in my bathroom to seal the clasp at the back. Wincing unsurely at the lacy, nude coloured cups and doubting their ability to contain my chest with no support other than two overlapping diagonal straps on my lower back, I warily pull my _evening gown_ – that's right, I'm a classy muchacha now – down from its hanger up on the shower door and slip into the stormy grey fabric.

I waddle back through to my bedroom, feeling self conscious of my bare back, and open the door to let my mum in.

She smiles, for once genuinely. 'See? That's a lot better than raggedy jeans and shirts, isn't it?' she muses, walking over to my dressing table, which I grudgingly cleared of books. She pulls the chair out for me.

'Yes, because I'm so comfortable right now,' I mutter, feeling at my lower back for the weird bra straps for her to then slap my hand away.

'Trust me, you're going to look like a princess,' she coos, showing how little she knows about me.

I sigh, 'great.'

I never wanted to be princess. When I was little, I always wanted to be the badass single girl in an otherwise boy punk band. But I just let her scrawl the pretty stuff on my face.

Once she's finished, having worked in silence, she leaves with only a reminder to come down in five minutes.

Before traipsing through to the bathroom again, I nod. I'm sure I shan't forget my appointment with pretentious Ministry workers and their pretentious kids who go to pretentious schools. Seriously, that's one stuffy room down there, and not just because of the number of people.

I stare, transfixed, at the stranger in the mirror. Her hair is turned back at the sides and then it all twists and pins up with a blue-green and silver hair comb, bringing out the similar shade of her eyes, which are framed with smoky grey eye shadow to match her dress; circling her neck and gathering at the top to then hug around her figure, sparing her back, and gradually loosen down her legs. Her cheekbones are contoured and delicately coloured making her look very mature and her lips are a natural pearl. Silver hangs from her ears and straps around her feet, lifting them a few inches off the ground.

She's beautiful. But she's not me.

I stare numbly at her for a few more seconds before taking a deep breath and forcing myself to my bedroom door. I push myself to turn the handle and step out into the hallway, knowing that if I don't go now, I won't ever.

I take ambitious strides in my heels, pulling my shoulders back and staring blankly ahead. Or at least I hope I'm expressionless. Nerves writhe in my stomach for some reason, like they did approaching the Halloween dance, but I don't care as long as they're not visible.

How silly would that be?! Showing up nervous to some posh New Year's gathering that means nothing to me.

I gather my skirt in my right hand and lift it slightly, needily clinging onto the banister with my left as I brave the stairs.

Why are you nervous? Are you scared of the Ministry officials? Pah! Of course not. Maybe it's anticipation, again. Am I always going to get like this when I'm forced to dress up?

I take another deep, tremulous breath as I round the single spiral of the stairs, the cream and white marble of the entrance hall drawing into view once more, now lower down.

I hear the racket of jumbled conversations echoing through from the larger living room. And my dad's voice as he greets more guests at the door.

The mysterious voices of the newcomers resonate through the high ceilinged room, though my mind starts screaming, nagging at me, telling me they aren't mysterious at all. But in my numb, tingling state of nerves, I'm unable to place them before the door comes into view and I see Al, closing his umbrella while our dads converse.

Shaking his hair free of any stray raindrops, he looks up. And then he spots me, the girl in grey.

Our gazes lock and, for a moment, times stops.


	20. Naughty Sister

My Sixth Year: Parkinson, Pressure & Mr Al Potter

Harry Potter: Next Generation Fan Fiction

**A/N: Sup muchachas :D Thank you ever so much for the reviews and follows and favourites! I hope I keep delivering to you all the way you deserve! :3  
This one has a wee naughty word (for poo) in it towards the end, just so that you know. Aren't I a badass? ;)**

**This one is VERY eventful. I hope it lives up to your expectations! Please let me know what you think as this chapter was very emotionally exhausting to write! XD**

**Chapter 20: Naughty Sister**

_What is he doing here_?

Okay, so maybe my mind isn't quite at the stage of questioning his presence. Right now it's too overrun with panicked curse words (it's as though the Hulk has smashed a Scottish pub up in this vital organ). But instead of cracking the marble floors in an angsty, mortified rage-fest, which is usually the next step I take in these ghastly situations, I feel heat rise through my body and tinge my cheeks and nose as I squirm under his gaze; the confusion from me leaving him on the train still residing there, but along with something else. They gleam, but not in the sad or cheeky way I've come to know them to frequent. They seem warm. His brow isn't creased along with the hint of confusion in his rings of green though – it's smooth and slack, like his jaw which hollows his cheekbones slightly, his mouth agape like mine. It's the dumbfounded, curious expression of someone who's been taken off guard and is now at war with themselves, but there's something else there as well… Something I can feel in my features too.

I don't know why he's surprised – this is _my_ house – I'm the one who should be modelling that look. And those eyelashes, why do boys have such great eyelashes?! Damn them, I say, damn them all! Especially this one, thinking he's all dapper in his black suit, fitted just right with his shimmering dark grey crisp collar fastened below his Adam's apple… and angular jaw- a slender green tie sitting atop the button, making his eyes seem intense… despite… their softness…

Oh crap, that'll be the "something else" then. Currently, I should be madly cackling at the very idea of Potter being taken aback by appearance, but I'm still too busy freaking out over what I'm supposed to do now – it's not as though we can just stand here all night, although that, admittedly, sounds a lot more thrilling than the gathering of pretentious Ministry olds in the living room.

But, panicked with nothing else to do and with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu from my birthday party, I quickly turn and walk away hurriedly, right into that very place, whilst trying to appear collected and purposeful, even though I know my burning cheeks are betraying me. Pink and grey, I'm just a pigeon flapping away because someone unexpectedly stamped their foot right next to me. Unfortunately, I just so happen to flap towards conversation with my mum and our ignorant next-door neighbour, Marian Marchand.

I automatically turn away: _Quick, run before they do the thing-_!

'Heidi!' my mum crows.

Damn it.

I slowly spin to face them, imitating the stiff, set smile my mum preserves solely for Smalltalk, hoping she's not wearing it too.

But, of course, she is. Every robotic, emotionless Ministry bum in this room is.

I unwillingly step over to them. I'd rather eat all of the brown and green beans from a packet of Bertie Bott's than be here.

My mum drapes her arms over my shoulders, trying to appear proud and loving, but she's really just pulling them back to fix my posture. 'We've been discussing Marian's daughter's good hand at poetry and I was just mentioning your knack for writing,' she smiles, her eyes cold.

Marian, in a tailored cream dress and with her short, sandy vintage curls topped by a black net, smiles boastfully, daring me to be as great as her precious, mature Melody.

Screw this. I'm Dino. I'll always be Dino. I'm perfectly comfortable with myself and I am not giving in to the pointless pressure of social status. I express, tone and face serious, 'oh yes. Last night, as I gazed up at the stars, I wrote one called 'Banana Moon'. It's extremely dark and romantic, very Shakespearian.'

I hear a hushed laugh somewhere over my right shoulder, strikingly familiar due to its sincere contrast with his personality; one I have never forgotten since the first time it broke from his cold smirk, genuine and warm and husky. He apologises, with a few more escaped laughs, to the stuffy men who were speaking to his dad. 'Please go on,' he adds to the man with the grumbling, booming voice who had been talking before the interruption, an amused smile palpable in his tone.

I force myself to cut away from that area behind me, focusing back on my mum and her "chum".

My mum's false veil slips and tears down her smile.

She clenches her jaw at me, but I don't look at her for being too busy excusing myself from this ridiculously boring routine of "my daughter has done such and such, be jealous", "well mine did this…": 'As much as I'd love to rave about the deep inspiration- the core of _emotion_,' I touch my heart overdramatically, 'that I drove into such an eerie piece, I'm afraid I must be off to…' I scan the room hopefully for an alibi, and then, when I spot Perry's bum in the air, bent over on a chair by the food table, I finish, '…to get my brother's face out of the cream bowl!'

As I leave them, I catch my mum glancing warily in the direction of her unmannerly children and then back at Marian.

'So your son isn't familiar with cutlery?' I hear the eccentric bat smirk triumphantly.

I reach Perry, who is usually a lovely little boy, to have my fears confirmed. He is with Daisy Hooker, the youngest of the rowdiest family in the estate and our local prankster.

Upon my approach the tiny girl giggles, shoots to the floor and crawls under the intricately-carved table in a flash of dark blue chiffon.

'What is it?' Perry splutters, lifting his head from the dish so that the cream curls at his chin in a goatee. 'What's wrong?!' he demands, his dessert-lidded eyes peeled wide at his wildly laughing friend through the glass of the table. He slowly turns to me as I did to my mum and Marian, except his white-smeared face reads of an adorable worried dread as opposed to my previous state of bored expectance. 'Please don't tell mummy,' he squeaks, licking his lips.

I shake my head, 'she already knows, you Silly Billy.' I jerk my thumb over my shoulder at the embarrassed woman in question, then crouch down and start wiping his face with a napkin from the table.

'Am I in trouble?' he pouts, his goatee plopping onto the floor.

I shrug, 'maybe a little, but hardly.' Pushing his soft black hair from his face to wipe his forehead, I grin, 'it's always your big sister who gets the worst from your antics, remember?'

He giggles and scolds, 'naughty sister!' wiping a bit of cream of my nose.

I gasp in mock horror and tickle his neck until he's writhing on the floor, a mix of chuckles and disgusted scoffs barking from onlookers. With him pinned down, I finish clearing his face of cream before letting him roll under the table to lie on his belly next to Daisy.

I stand and clean my own nose with a fresh, ironically cream-coloured, napkin. Then, just as I'm about to walk over to the jazz band and ask them to play the Macarena, Daisy – her dark bobbed hair curtaining her mischievously animated face – chirps, 'that boy's been looking at you a lot.'

I immediately know who she's talking about, but when I look back to where he had been before and where his dad still stands, looking bored, he isn't there. 'What boy?' I ask, back still turned to her.

'I will have you know, I am an intolerably sexy man.'

I startle from the sudden voice behind me and turn to unsurprisingly find Al smirking at me.

Before I can contradict his statement (we can at least take out the "intolerably"), Perry says, 'you're _really_ tall,' gawking up the tower that is Potter. 'Are you two going to get married?'

My face screws up in disgust and confusion. 'Because height totally _justifies_ _marriage_,' I comment on his logic.

'So you are getting married?' his face lights up as he wriggles from under the table and straightens into standing.

Oh, Perry. My dear, sweet, naive little Perry.

I tousle his slightly sticky, white-fringed hair and say, 'the only way I would even so much as consider that, young brother, is if he were to be the one wearing the dress.' I look up at Al, who just raises an eyebrow in consideration with a crooked smile, something that's been prying his smirks open a lot lately, despite the problems with his brother.

'Besides,' I continue, shaking my head clear and ripping my eyes away from Potter, which he seems to note as his smirk creeps back.

I restart, to convince both myself and Perry, 'besides, boys have cooties…' I glance back up at Al, his bright eyes smiling down at me. 'Boys have cooties,' I repeat, still looking at him, instead of my brother, with far-off, bemused questioning, as though saying, "Do you? You do, right?"

'Girls have cooties…' I trail off, gradually losing control over both my mind and words as I struggle to find the will to look away from him. I subconsciously start to slowly nod like anything I'm saying actually makes sense in this context. 'We all have cooties, now run along!'

I shoo Perry and Daisy with my hands and then, panicked, I march towards the traditional wooden double doors, frazzledly announcing, 'I think I'll run along too!'

'Fine, but I'm coming with you.'

Knowing full well that he's the one I'm trying to squirm away from, Al follows me.

I hurriedly climb the stairs, hiking my skirt up. 'Please, don't,' I object breathlessly.

He stops halfway up the stairs while I continue to scurry away. 'You know you can't just run away every time you get scared and confused,' he calls up to me from the centre of the marble spiral. I pause at the top with my bare back to him as he goes on, 'especially when you don't know the other side of the problem and you don't even understand your own.'

My shoulders frigidly rise as I force myself to breathe. He's right, I don't know what's going on with him, his thoughts, what he thinks or maybe even knows about what's going on with us; how he feels. I wish I did. Is he offering to tell me?

I remember when I first properly talked to him. The day we were partnered up in DADA. I was drenched from a Peeves attack. He was just another cheeky bugger. He still is. But that day feels so far away now. I've changed in ways I don't really understand. Yet he's still the same, still Potter. Except he's not – not in my mind.

Now he's Al.

I hang my head and go to my room without a single word or glance back. I face my door as I slowly shut it, gasping out a shaky breath and wishing I had the will to run back out there and throw myself at him. I could do with being held, even if it is by Potter. But I wouldn't do that – I'm too scared that it would confirm my worries that I've somehow managed to care for Al more than I ever could have imagined; that I've tied myself to him and made him my shell.

The thought of the green glow from the fireplace shining through my eyelids as I slip away to the sound of his voice creeps into my mind. I shake it off.

I turn around, wanting to crawl into my bed and hibernate for the rest of winter, but then the aching in my chest clenches once more as I find my mum sitting, legs gracefully crossed, on the delicate chair by the dressing table. Though her elegant demeanour does not fool me when I see that her face bears a hard, quiet rage.

'Tell me,' she enquires, voice calm but stern, 'do you make it your occupation to humiliate and let down your own mother?'

I swallow – out of anger, not fear. I'll never be afraid of her. I'll never forgive her. I offer no reply, allowing her to continue, daring her to find the words that will ignite my rage.

She slowly, intimidatingly, rises from the chair. 'I'm the source of your very existence. I'm the one who makes sure you are fed, clothed, sheltered. I give you all you need. And you ungratefully live out this blessed life-' she cuts herself short and starts again, her voice rougher now. 'All I ask is that you behave and that you respect me, but what I get is _that_,' she hisses, pointing to the living room through the floor, where I had unleashed my sarcasm on Marian.

'A blessed life?' I whisper, my voice steady despite my burning, shredding mind and body. 'You call a life where I'm shunned and hated by my own parents one of luxury?' I test.

She stares blankly at me, her blue eyes piercing holes through me underneath her set, black eyebrows.

I start to shake my head, feeling myself lose control as I slip and let my pent up fury rule me. My voice comes out frighteningly high as I erratically yell, 'oh, no, don't get me wrong! This house is really great with all of its _glass_' – I kick the tall floor vase by the door and it smashes against the chest of drawers – 'and its _gold_!' I spit, throwing galleons from atop the same drawers at her feet. She jumps slightly, forcing her to finally blink as they clatter on the floorboards and tantalisingly dance around her. My voice rises still as I shout, 'but I'm not just some plastic doll you've grown bored of! You can't just make me up into something I'm not and expect me to be passive about it, especially when you go on to all but DISOWN ME when I choose to be myself!'

My breathing is ragged, but I don't stop, not even when her mouth falls open to "calm me".

'I'm so sorry I'm not perfect and that I don't want to join you on your catty climb up the social ladder! I'm deeply sorry that I'm such a disappointment and to make you feel so _ashamed _and _embarrassed_ by me!' I shriek, removing my earrings and flinging them at her feet with the coins.

Despite her parted lips and shining eyes, my mother still has nothing to say.

So I give her more to think about: 'I APOLOGISE FOR SO UNGRATEFULLY CRYING OVER THE LIFE YOU'VE GIVEN ME – FOR CURLING UP AT NIGHT AND WISHING TO BE NOTHING BUT A NIGHTMARISH FIGMENT OF EVERYONE I LOVE'S IMAGINATION BECAUSE OF HOW SMALL AND UNIMPOTRANT, UNWANTED AND INCAPABLE – HOW _UNWORTHY_ – YOU'VE MADE ME FEEL!'

I heave, hair falling out of its comb, eyes bloodshot, feeling my rage sink sickeningly into ruins. I choke, 'but what's worse is that I know the real you is still there, doing nothing about it.'

I stare at her, willing her to say something as she starts walking towards me, but then she just orbits me and floats, watery-eyed, out of the door.

Achingly ill, I stumble towards my bed. But I don't make it. I collapse to my knees, blurrily spotting red on my foot, and sob by the rejected riches on the carpet. My body racks and convulses as I try to scratch away the image of my mum standing here vacantly while I pour my hatred-driven heart out.

I don't know how long I stay here for. When my mind was caught up in memories of me with my family before and after moving to this house, it all felt painfully slow. But kneeling here, face wet and with no more tears to offer, numbly gazing into space, I feel like I have been doing this and could do this forever.

My mind is at the stage of pointlessly wandering, musing silly things like the duration of my breakdown.

How come when you're tired of running you stop, but when you're so emotionally exhausted beyond the point of functioning you keep going? Why can't we just stop feeling?

I'm probably going to spend the whole night here. I can't even bring myself to ponder the idea of pulling myself up onto my bed, never mind standing and walking there.

Absentmindedly grating the comb from my hair across my knee, I glance around my room. One of the galleons on the floor is standing on its edge. There's a cobweb outside my window, silver in the night. I need to put my records back into alphabetical order. My Weird Sisters poster is trying to fall down again. My jar of flobberworm mucus is nearly empty. I've been meaning to get some more for ages. I'm so lazy. Oh, and the carpet's kind of red from my cut-up foot. Oops.

A knock sounds at my door. I would usually jump, but I can't bring myself to move an inch, not even to open my mouth and speak. I feel so empty, but it still hurts. It makes no sense.

The knock comes again. After a few seconds of no response, the knocker's voice softly calls through the door, 'I'm coming in, Heidi.'

It's Al. I'm not facing the right way to see it's him, but I'd recognise that voice anywhere. It's even at the point where I can tell his footsteps apart from others'.

'Oh shit,' he breathes when he sees the red stain around me and on my skirt. Suddenly, his careful steps toward me halt and change direction. He strides over to my bath towel, strewn on the floor, and drapes it on my bed. He then swiftly scoops me into his arms and gently lays me down, feet on the towel.

Taking his blazer off on the way, he goes to the bathroom and returns with a basin of water, a cloth and bandages, muttering about how stupid the law of "no magic outside Hogwarts" is.

He sits on the end of my bed, the towel and my feet on his knees as he removes my shoes, cleans the injured of the pair and critically wraps it in bandages, sighing about how lucky I am not to have gotten glass wedged inside it.

He watches me intently throughout the process, making sure he isn't hurting me, but I'm still too involved in my internal mess to convey any physical pain.

After tidying and washing hands, he comes back from the bathroom again, this time with a drink of water, having taken the glass from my bedside table. He places it back there.

As he starts to straighten up and turn back to the bottom of the bed, I take hold of the end of his tie. He stops and follows its green length, up my arm, to my tear-streaked face.

My eyebrows twitch together as I try to find the words I was looking for. Eventually, I croak, deluded amusement playing at my lips, 'since when have I been constantly reliant on you?'

He doesn't smile or laugh. Frowning in concern, he says, 'do you want to talk about it?'

My mum? No. In fact, I wish I could avoid her for the rest of my life; she makes me so sad yet so angry that I fear she'll break me.

I was going to shake my head, but now I remember that he was on the stairs. He probably heard the whole thing. I have no reason to hide.

Although I don't want to talk about her, something crosses my mind. I quietly voice it aloud, thumbs playing at the silk of his tie as I look straight at him, his worried eyes close due to leaning over: 'have you ever… fantasised about revenge? About voicing your hurt to the dealer? And it feels good. But then, when it becomes reality…'

'It feels terrible,' he finishes, smiling sadly.

I shake my head with a breathy laugh, bringing a palm to my forehead. 'Of course… you launched your brother into a wall,' I recall.

'Because he mistreated me for who I am,' he says, taking my hand from my forehead and holding it. 'Yet, after all of this is done,' he promises, eyes wide and determined, 'I _am_ going to fix it. I won't let anything happen to James, especially not before I get to apologise and try to mend all that's gone wrong between us.'

So the same can be done with my mum and me. But she's the one who's done wrong.

'He should be apologising to you,' I whisper, glancing between his face and our hands.

He nods in understanding. 'Sometimes, people find it hard to say sorry when they themselves are grieved,' he reasons. 'Take Shylock, for example,' he smiles shyly, knowing he's speaking my language, 'when his daughter, Jessica, runs away to marry a Christian man and takes his money with her, he's furious with her but he also blames himself.' I watch in fascination as his face animates while he explains, his eyes on the stained hem of my dress, 'as a merchant, he'd always been so obsessed with money that he hadn't treated his daughter the way she deserved, valuing his blood and riches the same. So when he's crying out in the streets for his daughter and his ducats, he feels betrayed by her, but he also feels as though he drove her away. He's so upset with himself that it hurts too much to admit it aloud, and so he fuels it into his rage at Antonio. If Jessica were to have returned, it would have taken him a lot of willpower to apologise, and it would have severely damaged his pride.'

I swallow and choke out a laugh despite myself. 'I give you an O,' I say. 'I expect a full critical essay by next week.'

He shrugs and grins, 'okay, so maybe I enjoyed The Merchant of Venice...'

'I'm guessing you finished it when… when I fell asleep?' I assume, blushing slightly as I remember waking up on his shoulder with him smirking down at me, cocking an amused eyebrow.

He nods, but says no more on the subject. 'Do you want to sleep now?' he asks, features thoughtful. He laughs lightly as I yawn on cue. 'I'll take that as a yes then,' he concludes, turning to leave.

'Where are you going?' I demand, keeping him from continuing by my grip on his hand.

My whimper-like tone takes me by surprise and I inwardly cringe.

What? So what if I want company right now…

His confusion passes as quickly as it comes and he quietly pries his hand away and walks around to the other side of the bed.

He lies down on his back, as I am, and silence passes over the room.

Just as I'm about to thank him for staying, my grandfather clock chimes midnight in chorus with the other clocks in the house and the cheers from downstairs.

Potter jolts in fright from the abrupt noise and his ears and the top of his cheeks tinge slightly pink as I laugh gloriously at him, surprising myself yet again.

'Did you just _yelp_?' I guffaw, my smile cracking the stiffness of my tear-dried face.

'I think I did,' he laughs, rubbing his throat in disbelief after emitting such a high-pitched noise.

After contagiously catching laughter off of one another for several minutes, I sigh and feel my smile slip from the come down. I frown in confusion, struggling to believe that Potter has been able to take me away from the events of tonight so suddenly.

Before I can dwell on said events and keep myself from sleep, I sausage roll (which isn't up to my usual spy-witch standards as I haven't been practising lately) over to him and let him drape his arm over my waist.

My eyes flutter shut.

'Happy New Year, Heidi,' he says, his fingers tickling up and down my spine.

I curiously note the fact that I am actually comfortable with this, but stop myself before I start analysing it and freak out. I can always punch him later if need be… or if I just feel like it.

'Crappy New Year, Potts,' I mumble and pat his cheek, which stretches under my hand as he smiles, his laugh breathing into my hair; my hand falling down to his neck as it grows limp.

**A/N: I don't think you understand how much I was getting into Heidi's stand against her mum. My mum actually presumed I was on my period and left a box of tampax outside my door. Oh how she amuses me so.**

**Please let me hear your thoughts (on the chapter/story, not in general, that'd be fairly creepy)! **


	21. Hoops, Scales & Ducats

My Sixth Year: Parkinson, Pressure & Mr Al Potter

Harry Potter: Next Generation Fan Fiction

**A/N: … Hey. Please don't hate me. At least the reason it's late this time is because it turned out longer than I'd anticipated. I'm afraid updates will be weekly from now on, because I go back to school on the 14****th**** and fifth year (Highers) is the toughest. I'm really not looking forward to it **** My maths teacher is a bald, Glaswegian grump who teaches us like we're toddlers and takes his issues out on everyone else. Also, his shiny head is really distracting. It's like a newly polished bowling ball.  
Okay, I'm going to stop babbling about my maths teacher's baldness and let you read the update! XD Remember updates will be logged on my profile if you're ever curious as to when the next will be up. Thank you very much for all of the support! It's great hearing that you're liking it and I love getting to know you guys! Please review and let me know what you think **

**Chapter 21: Hoops, Scales & Ducats**

Why do I always insist that everything has to mean something? I'm driving myself crazy! And I mean unhealthily, mentally, _socially_ crazy as opposed to just being a nutter. There's a purpose to each step I take down from the library to the Great Hall – to get to Apparition class. There's a reason why I've tuned out from Adrian and Rose's Arithmancy ranting – because they're contradicting one of my theories and are therefore wrong, but also because I need to convince myself that this pendant, which is burning a hole through my chest, doesn't mean anything.

You're probably confused as to what I'm on about. Well, like all of my problems, the culprit is Potter:

When I woke up last Tuesday, still in my bloodied dress and with the most horrific panda eyes, I rolled over to find myself alone. Obviously, I wasn't expecting Al to still be there. He would have left with his dad shortly after I fell asleep. But I _was_ surprised to find my beanie on his pillow. I hadn't thought he'd bring it with him, I'd thought he would return it to me when we got back to Hogwarts, but there it was, smelling like Christmas; marzipan, fern, burning wood and then mint; Al. I stretched it open to slip it on my bedpost, its usual place of honour, when something fell out of it, glinting, and gently thudded onto my carpet.

It was a necklace. The one I haven't brought myself to remove since and the one that I can't stop fussing over. It has a delicate chain and resting perfectly on my breastbone is a set of golden scales. They're small and delicate and two-dimensional. Simple but beautiful. Across the base of the scales in tiny scripture is the line, 'so strange, outrageous, and so variable…'

It's from The Merchant of Venice – Shylock's scales and Solanio's words.

And after two minutes of admiring it, I put it on. As soon as it touched my skin, my confusion over the message behind it started to rise within me and I paced my room, tidying it to keep my fidgety limbs busy, with all of Al's possible motives rushing through my mind. So when it came to two hours after doing that and I'd only been able to come to two conclusions, I'm sure you can understand my continued confusion and panic.

Why am I panicked? Because the first of my theories means that this blushing, fumbling, confusing urge coming over me is also taking root in him. The start of Solanio's line is "I never heard a passion so confus'd, so strange, outrageous, and so variable…"

A "passion".

_A PASSION._

That pretty much sums up my first, terrifying theory. Once this dawned on me, beanie and necklace on, I thought I was going to have a fit so I decided to pan out from reading into specific words, and I realised he could very well have chosen only the second half of the line for a reason. My second theory for this necklace's meaning is that he intends to describe _me_ with those four adjectives, rather than a _feeling_:

"So strange, outrageous, and so variable…"

I'm undoubtedly more than strange. I'm outrageous (-ly sassy). I'm variable – like I have said: "pregnant, hormonal dragon".

And so, naturally, I have been trying to believe in the second, that it doesn't mean anything; he was only describing me. But once an idea embeds itself in your mind, there's no way to erase it and that first theory, no matter how ridiculous, is a big idea.

I love this necklace and I don't want to take it off, but the possibilities of its background are driving me barmy.

I resist the urge to reach for the scales, leaving my hand twitching and fiddling with the belt loop of my trousers.

It's just a Christmas gift. That's all it is.

I keep telling myself this, easing myself back into reality with its false assurance.

As we squeeze free of the stairs, pushing against the opposing hordes of students leaving from where we're heading, Adrian finishes ranting about his grandmother – a hobby he practises whenever Arithmancy is brought up in conversation.

Rose sighs in frustration, partly at him and partly at some seventh year who just shouldered his way past using her face, but she doesn't comment on her friend's tirade. Instead, she looks over at me in hope of changing the subject. She notices my edginess and leans back and forth past Adrian, twirling around various barging students as she says, 'it's okay, Heidi. You've been doing great in Apparition and we still have today's lesson before the test.'

I offer a small smile. That should be what's bothering me, my NEWTs and my Apparition test, not some guy – not Potter. But obviously I'm not going to share what's really on my mind with the guy I used to like and my current problem's cousin, so I just nod slightly and sober my expression.

Outside the Great Hall is a line of sixth year students, pressed right up against the wall while they grimace in preparation for elbows and shoulders to greet their faces from the flocks of students leaving breakfast for class.

Why must our Apparition class be in the hall when it has just been breakfast? I get that the space is needed, but it's kind of a safety hazard. And now Adrian, Rose and I have to break through the traffic to join our class against the wall. I know I can be a snarky nutcase, but can you pray for me?

Adrian goes first, slipping between bodies, fumbling with his glasses and muttering his apologies incessantly. He just makes it to the other side, plastering himself against the wall like a poster, hoping to blend in with his surroundings.

After getting smacked in the face a few times, yelling at people about where they can shove their elbows and receiving far too many accidental gropings for my liking, I break free of the wild current and fling myself against the wall. Rose soon follows, angrily muttering about a "selfish cousin". I skim the crowd and sure enough I spot Louis marching, tall and golden, and rubbing his head as though it was just forcefully greeted by Rose's hand.

Roughly scraping her hair behind her ear, she says, 'all I ask of him is one game! That's all he needs to play! But _no_, he's finally realised that not studying for the past two years was a bad idea and wants to "focus on his NEWTs"! Typical! Just typ-'

'I'll do it!' Adrian interjects exasperatedly. 'I'll be the substitute Ravenclaw Seeker, okay?'

'No!' she objects. 'Absolutely not, Adrian, 'Rose shakes her head profusely as our class starts moving and dispersing into the Great Hall. 'It's not right to ask you to do that.'

He throws his hands up. 'You're not asking,' he insists, 'I'm volunteering!'

Rose's further refusal is lost to my ears. Everything is just noise again; first years' giggles, their grunts and yells as fourth years push them, the squabbles and cackles of backstabbing and pointless school feuds, the whimpers of seconds years as they realise they forgot they had homework to do, and the whispers of spreading rumours.

I hate looking at Hogwarts this way. Take away the magic of the place, our blood and the schooling itself and this is what we have – just another school full of teenagers, dependent on the lies of gossip and living by social status like religion. We're so much more than this, or at least we should be. I hate to place myself above others, seeing as that's what people like Michaela Nott do, but I am above this. Many brilliant people here are. But there's still peer pressure and arrogance and prejudice that try to tear us down, and when I span out on the entrance hall, noting the turning heads and whispering mouths beside ears, that is what I see.

I've been the starring role in the school's works of fiction before. When Paloma left Keren, Laura, and me for Michaela, of course rumours were going to tsunami over the student body. I didn't care and still don't. What some people see as snide and clever, I see as pathetic and bitchy. Gossiping is one of those things. I just don't get how someone can be so completely and utterly bored with their own life to feel the need to invest their time in other peoples'. It's frivolous.

But, no matter how little I care about such things, I can't help but feel a squirming, uneasy dread rise inside of me when I first realise that the turning heads, glances and whispers are directed at me.

What is it this time? Am I cheating on my books with mash potato? Old news guys.

I suppose if it were like any of the usual ridiculous lies that are spread, people would be grinning and laughing or scoffing at how weird I am, but they look shocked. So this either means that they are staring at the wrong person, someone has died, I'm pregnant, or they've found out something that is actually _true_.

I tell myself to shake it off, turn around and walk through those Great Hall doors none the wiser, but I can't. I'm not worried, I'm curious, baffled even. No matter how much I want to let it go, I find myself slowly trudging into the Great Hall with my shoulders drooped, my brow furrowed and my brain madly racing through my every insecurity that could have been revealed.

No one knows about my anxiety issues, so it can't be that. My family problems? Well the only people aware of them are Keren, Laura and Al. My best friends wouldn't tell. Potter wouldn't tell. He likes knowing things, not voicing them – he just lives in his head and although he can be a twat, he wouldn't go blabbing about such things, especially after comforting me about it. I guess that's one thing I can easily admit that I like about him: he's honest and reliable. He's a genuinely good person, free of prejudice of any sort and completely uncaring of what other people think whilst still believing that there is nothing they have the right to know. Like I said, he's a chameleon who loves to know, but not to pass on. I guess we sort of have that in common…

That's it. It's Potter. Someone's clocked onto our spending so much time together and has planted the idea that we're going out or something of that petty sort. Well they can say I'm having a raunchy affair with a house elf for all I care. If this is how they want to pass their time, that's fine by me…

You can tell there's a catch, can't you? Believe me, I'm way past all of this rumour nonsense, but I can still feel anxiety crawling all over and inside me, all because of their reactions. Those people out there looked almost _concerned_, as though they were hearing of something far more serious than an unconfirmed relationship. I don't know what else it could be though. I may have a crazy personality, but the most interesting part of my day is styling my hair into a Mohawk with shampoo and making characters out of my mash potato at dinner. Somehow I don't think all of these people, who may as well be strangers to me, would be so enthralled by my daily endeavours. They just like the embarrassing stuff and even that doesn't get this reaction.

I scrunch my eyes into a forceful blink and grit my teeth as I slump against one of the house tables, which have been pushed aside to clear some space in the hall.

Rose is still arguing with Adrian over his offer. She should let him play. After his parents' flight accident it's probably the best way for him to find closure. He's been doing really well lately, bringing himself back into the world. I guess Rose is worried he'd lose it in the air and do something terrible, but he still has everything to live for and he knows it. He's smart. If anything, he just offered to fill the position to stop Rose from constantly hyperventilating over it. I was on the brink of volunteering myself and I can't play Quidditch, never mind for a different house.

Before I can chip in to enlighten Rose ('JUST LET HIM PLAY, GINGER'), mostly to keep myself from pondering what could be rattling the school body, Ms Masie-Belle bounces into the hall. Her chipper steps clack sharply around the high-ceilinged room as she claps her hands for us to find a space by one of the hoops.

They just had to give us the overly chirpy, cutesy instructor, didn't they? I'd rather have an old grump than this alien, stick-like doll that is creepily happy at this early hour. I have decided that she is one of those freaky vintage waxworks that grin down at you come to life. There's just no other explanation for her perfect teeth, tan, the shine to her skin and auburn hair and her frilly attire.

Today she's strutting around in a dark pink pencil skirt with her usual pink stewardess hat and a white lacy, frilly blouse tucked in. Seriously, the shirt is the embodiment of her personality. I would count the frills for you, but then it would just look like I'm staring at her chest and I think the school is talking about me enough as it is.

I scuff over to the nearest cross and stand on it, adjusting my feet into perfect place out of boredom. The white hoop glows in the daylight streaming into the hall, halfway across the room.

Ms Masie-Belle goes through her usual routine of taking attendance, asking us all how our day has been even though it has just started and then milling over the health and safety rules for the billionth time.

Eyes glowing amber, cheeks and lips rosy, she chants with a cheery smile, 'Destination, Determination and Deliberation. Remember it well, focus on it kiddies: Destination, Determination and Deliberation!'

I'm afraid I'm too busy focusing on being called "kiddies". I am not appreciative Ms Daisy-Cowbell. I'm seventeen. I converse with adults (I talk to myself profusely). I have a blazer (in the loft that I tried to set fire to at the age of five)… I READ THE NEWSPAPER.

She continues to chant her three D's as I run through mine: Don't Do it Daisy. Don't Do it Daisy. Don't Do it Daisy.

'Ready kiddies?' she coos, hands clasped under her perfectly pointed chin.

She did it. She did _the thing_.

I should probably focus now that I think about it. I honestly have no idea how I haven't seriously splinched myself yet.

Okay, there's the hoop Heidi. Hoopety-hoop-hoop, whoop-whoop-! No, Heidi, seriousness. There's a hoop. That's a damn… hoop-y… hoop. One mighty fine-ass hoop.

'_Focus_,' the instructor presses.

I'm getting there Miss Daisy-Days.

Hoop. Hoola-hoop. Hoop-y thing. Ring. Like a donut. Oh Merlin, I want a donut.

'Okay, on the count of three!' Ms Masie-Belle chirps. '_One…_'

I like big hoops and I cannot lie…

'_Two_…'

Deciding that I should probably actually picture where I'm going, I imagine my feet firmly stood on the stone several metres away with the silvery hoop encircling me and the wizards playing wizard chess in the painting beside me.

'_Three_!'

…

A crack sounds. My body strains as it's compressed. I'm squeezed as I defy all laws of muggle science. And then I'm there, in the hoop once again.

We've been at this for ages. Ms Masie-Belle even allowed us to move the hope back a whole centimetre each time! We should be moving onto the next stage soon: apparition without hoops. We need to spot a certain part of the hall to apparate to with no hoops to mark it for us. I've been doing well at this the past few lessons, but I can't help but feel nervous about it today what with it being the last class before our test. If I don't ace this now, my chances at passing will be very low, that is if they even let me take the test.

I just need to focus. I need to be determined to reach my destination and move without detonating or whatever Masie-Daisy's always going on about. "_Focus_".

I think I'll aim for the spot right in front of the doors. Maybe that'll drop a hint at my eagerness to leave. I just want to get my license so that I can apparate to the fridge and back up to my room without having to engage in conversation with _people_. While Ms Masie-Belle goes over the key pointers for this next stage, I move on ahead, picturing the stone floor beneath me, right by a drying coffee spill from breakfast and with the heavy, pattern-engraved wooden doors towering above me and the sounds of Hagrid slipping in the snow echoing through the entrance hall behind them. I can do this.

I walk back down to my starting position, noting Adrian nodding at Rose while she shakes her head furiously. I think I'll hang out with Laura and Keren next period and leave these two to resolve their issues. I watch my feet as I lazily walk, musing to myself about cleaning the spiralling white stains of snow and road salt off of my boots. As I reach my cross, the instructor's high squeaks which have been muffledly bombarding my ears are challenged by the roaring groan and thud of the hall doors being opened. I turn and find Al and Malfoy strolling into the room.

I can almost see my focus waving me goodbye. Sure, I have seen him since New Years, but we haven't had the chance to properly talk. I haven't thanked him for the necklace. I've been too busy panicking over whether he even expects me to – I don't know what he means by it! Am I supposed to?

I watch his lips move as he nods to the instructor, 'sorry we're late.' His eyes trail to me for a second and flit back. 'Our Quidditch practise was extended.'

Again, Ms Masie-Belle's voice is at a loss to me and not just because of its dog-only frequencies. My mind and sight follow him. His hair is more unruly than usual, curly and dark from the snow, leaving his skin starkly pale, the few light freckles dusting his nose seeming a little more obvious despite its cold, pink tinge. The light muscles of his arm catch as he pulls his bag from his shoulder and places it on the floor, next to Malfoy's. His sleeves are rolled up and his tie is wonky and loose, same as his untucked shirt, showing his rush to change from his Quidditch uniform. This looks like the guy who took care of me on New Years and the one who read to me on my birthday. The suits and his usual immaculate state reflect his arrogant side, the one I can shoot sarcasm at and expect it back from. But I like seeing him like this.

The scales on my chest burn coldly as my skin prickles. Is this hot flush? Why am I getting hot flush? I am not a middle aged woman! I said I was an adult, not a pensioner. Okay, so maybe I'm gnashing out at the fact that it's happening because I don't want to look into the reason _why_ it's happening.

"I never heard a passion so confus'd,  
So strange, outrageous, and so variable…"

If he were going through the same thing, wouldn't I notice? Surely, he's noticed I'm a blushing wreck. After all, I do run away whenever we end up embarrassingly close. This all seems so out of the blue. I know that this has been happening to me a lot recently, but I can't recall what first triggered it. I get that it's _him_, but what is it about him that does this to me? Yes, he's attractive, and that's all that I wanted to believe it was at first, but after I let him hold me in my own bed, running his hands up and down my bare back until I fell asleep, there's no denying that there's more to this.

What scares me even more is that I may even _want_ there to be more to this. I've completely lost it and of course it would all be because of Potter!

I feel calm and comforted when we're together, y'know, when we're not at each other's throats or I'm like _this_. I love the way his eyes light up when he's passionate about things and that I'm the one who can get to him underneath his aloof, smirking side. I like noticing new things about his features, like the tiny little fleck of bronze in his left eye, even if that means going right up to his face and embarrassing myself.

He can tell when I need him to be serious and he always knows what to say, even if that's nothing at all:

"I will not be made a soft and dull-eyed fool,  
To shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield…"

We're so similar, yet so different that this all works. I don't know what it _works_ as, but here I am, fumbling over my thoughts as Ms Masie-Belle waves her wand and vanquishes the hoops, while the others stand _focussed_.

"There's something tells me- but it is not love-  
I would not lose you; and you know yourself  
Hate counsels not in such a quality."

I watch as Al stands, out of the way by the doors, hands in pockets while he and Scorpius laugh at something unintelligible.

Ms Masie-Belle's voice echoes in one ear, passes straight through and out the other. 'I'm afraid you boys will have to sit aside and catch up next period. I don't want you hurting yourselves because you missed the first stage,' she says sincerely, hand to her chest.

Malfoy makes some hushed crude comment and Al grins, dimpling his cheek. Malfoy pulls a sickle from his pocket and starts to flip it. It dings as it flicks from his nail, cuts the air and slaps back into his palm. He does it again. And again, passing time for himself, but raising my nerves with each sharp sound, like the ticking of a bomb, as I wait for Al's green gaze to find mine and realise that I've been staring.

I shake my head and try to imagine my destination by the door. The stones, the stain… but then next to that there are black shoes, leading to long black legs, a leather belt hiding under the hem of a white shirt, all the way up to a sharp, smirking face with soft green eyes, focussed directly on me in amusement.

"There's something tells me- but it is not love-  
I would not lose you…"

"To shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield…"

"A passion so confus'd,  
So strange, outrageous, and so variable…"

I feel a ghost of his hand trail up and down my spine. The soft hum of his voice reciting prose. The warmth of his chest. The concern in his eyes.

Concern which shows now as he takes in my agape mouth, my apprehensive and confused stare, my frowned brow and the uneven rise and fall of my shoulders. He mouths across the hall, 'are you okay?'

Malfoy keeps flipping the coin.

Ms Masie-Belle counts down.

I try to imagine the doors as I did before, but my mind keeps trailing along to Al; his worry. He shakes his head warningly as the instructor reaches two and I still haven't gotten myself together.

Ms Masie-Belle claps her hands in anticipation and cheers, '_three_!'

I shouldn't be doing this. I should stay where I am, but my body automatically reacts as the word rings out. I have a destination. An unsteady, conflicted destination, but a destination nonetheless and I'm subconsciously drawn to it.

Pressure presses in on me from all sides, squeezing me until I fear I'll burst. And then, with a snap, all goes white again. My ears pop and my head rings and I find myself looking up from the white to find Al's face. His hands cup my elbows, steadying me as my knees go weak. My head aches numbly, as though I'm still apparating. But I'm here, right in front of where, or rather who, I was thinking of.

I was focussed, but focussed on the wrong thing. And now it's blatantly obvious to everyone.

'Are you okay?' he repeats, this time aloud, but I only see his lips move. All sounds are distant to me and everything seems to happen slowly and hazily, despite time feeling like it's going at ten times the speed as I just stand here, at a loss for words.

I can't explain myself. At least not like this. So, again, I run from him.

My feet hit the ground roughly as I throw myself down the dungeon stairs and along to our common room.

I hear voices as I pass through the Slytherin Dungeon. I don't know what they're saying or if any of them are directed at me, but it shoots by in a blur as I fling the door to the dorm open and slide across the floor to my trunk.

My breaths are short and quick despite my great need for balloons of air at this point. My hands fumble at the dull gold, unlocked padlock as I pull it away and rummage hurriedly around in the trunk. I pull out a patchwork duffle bag from the bottom, clothes strewn all over my bed from the search. I hang it upside down and gold showers onto the rug beneath me.

I count breathlessly but determinedly as I go through with the only clear decision I've made today. It's a must, it makes sense. It's something I've been meaning to do and need to do. 'One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven…' I pant, tossing the coins into a pile as I number them. I don't know what I want or what even would be right for me in this whole labyrinth of Al in my mind, but this is a start; something I know is most definitely right. After losing count and restarting, head throbbing, I reach thirty. I scoop the galleons into the bag and leap from the wreckage, power walking back into the common room.

Sitting on two bean bags by a porthole are Keren and Laura, watching me approach them with baffled concern over my sprint to the dorm.

Keren starts, 'what was all that ab-'

'Here's the money,' I say, my blunt tone biting out from all of my jumbled emotions.

Laura glances worriedly at Keren, who is completely bemused. She takes a careful breath, sending some of her curls wavering, and then asks, 'are you okay?'

'I can't do it,' I confess, looking down at my ratty boots. I place the bag in her lap, making the coins jingle, and turn, lifting my blushing face again as I walk away, lips pressed. I shut the door to the dorm gently and slide down it to the floor.

After slouching there blankly for a few minutes, I crawl over to the rug and sit with my legs in a basket, gathering all of the stray galleons into a bundle and absently counting them as I start to clear my head (I'll need a shovel for all of this crap).

Coin clinks onto coin. I block out thoughts of them at my mum's feet and the one flipping fate-to-fate in Malfoy's hand. I instead think of the ones in Keren's lap, Al reciting Shylock's lines in my head:

'"My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter!"'

Shylock lost his daughter amongst his greed. I won't let Al slip me by just because of a bet, no matter how much of a sarcastic prick he can be – it's not like I can talk anyway.

I'm not ashamed of not going through with this pointless bet. It was just for a laugh and, obviously, for chocolate. But I am ashamed of making it in the first place. It wasn't right for us to do that to Laura, even if it's what we thought was best for her, and it wasn't fair for me to use Al like that.

There was the bet. There was the "character study". I wanted to win and I wanted to solve him, the enigma that is Potter. But he's now my biggest problem along with his own. Before, I found him interesting, but now I'm interested and I don't want any more confusions.

**A/N: Hey, hey you with the face, I don't think you should leave just yet, I think you should join the review party because it was my birthday a few months ago… And also because I left my llama hat at my friend's house and we've ran out of chocolate and I want to cry.**


	22. The Silvery Halls

My Sixth Year: Parkinson, Pressure & Mr Al Potter

Harry Potter: Next Generation Fan Fiction

**A/N: Hey gurl hey! I'm feeling fabulous and delusional as always, so forgive me for any horrific mistakes! Here is a very important chapter for you all. I hope you enjoy it, but above all I hope it makes sense.**

**Please let me know what you think**

**Chapter 22: The Silvery Halls**

'_Everything here says that you're clear for taking the test,' _Ms Masie-Belle said, glancing up from her clipboard, nibbling on the speckled quill in her pink nail-polished fingers. '_Do you feel ready to?'_

I hesitated. My mind flitted back and forth between her expectant false sweetness and from the past two weeks or so, classroom to classroom. Rose's fussing in Potions: '_I'm sure I saw you concentrating on the doors, but then you apparated… elsewhere… Are you sure you're okay? You know how badly unfocussed apparition can end – splinching and loss of mind, you could have even ended up in China!'_

Cursing her intelligence and observance, I'd replied, _'well I wasn't thinking about China,'_ and she'd said no more.

Then I've had Adrian's timid comments – _'you and that Potter guy seem pretty close now'_ – sprang at every fleeting mention of the central problem himself, in the corridor on the way to classes, buried up to our knees in the snow at Hogsmeade and even in little potato messages, which seems to have unintentionally become a tradition for us.

And don't even get me started on said issue's blunt tirades. He had the gore, in DADA on the Wednesday before the Apparition License Exam, to say, _'you're not taking that test on Friday. You could have splinched yourself in half last lesson. Did you not see me shaking my head for you not to go for it? You looked ill, it wasn't safe.'_

'_Oh, but it's perfectly safe for you to go back onto the Quidditch pitch after you fell to your death there?' _I snapped hushedly, quickly looking back down at my timed essay on boggarts and dementors, their relations and differences, as Professor Lupin glanced up at us warningly, pointing to the hour glass he'd been balancing on his fluffy black and blue hair.

Potter had looked away, seeming pretty miffed, just as I was, but hadn't pushed the matter any further that period. But every time he'd seen me since he'd brought it up one way or another, whether that be when having passed me in the halls and corridors, or in class. He was adamant that I not do it, that it wasn't safe. And he was right. Even if I'd aced the test, I'd forever have been haunted by the mistakes I made in the lessons and I would never have felt confident in apparating, which is something you need for the determination required.

So I gave myself an internal assuring nod and answered the instructor, _'I'd rather wait to retake the classes next year, just to be sure.'_

Everyone else passed, even Malfoy. The marking had been particularly strict due to Ms Masie-Belle's boss, Instructor Wilkie Twycross, who was there to approve the results, being a very bitter drunk. He was merely tipsy, just intoxicated enough to make the dull proceedings bearable, but enough to make the Minister's brow to furrow all the way up his bald head if he were to have found out. Yet despite putting his job in jeopardy, he'd said that the test was called A.L.E for a reason. Everyone still passed, although Rose did endanger her license when she yelled at Twycross for making a cross with his fingers at her and praying that she be forgiven for not having a soul. I may be having to wait to take the test 'til next year, but at least I had a right good snort and guffaw when I placed one of Rose's floating red hairs on the Head Instructor's shoulder… You know you're at a low point in your life when the highlight of your week is watching a drunken old man flail around.

I have to admit, I'd considered taking the test just to spite Potter and to prove him wrong, that I could do it, but despite all of my fantastic qualities I'm anything but a liar and he would have been able to tell that I wasn't truly comfortable with it.

I suppose I should be thankful that he's focussing on the dangers my actions posed, instead of the thoughts that actually caused me to apparate right in front of his face, which I strongly believe should still be paper-bagged for health and safety reasons. Yes, I know I've admitted that I like him – that I'm "interested" – and I'm not proud of it, but I can still hate his guts for it. I just feel so much better when I can blame these feelings on him. I mean, he could have _tried_ to have gone the wrong way about puberty, but no! He could at least grow some horrific sideburns to put me off…

You know, I've noticed I live in the past a lot… When I paid the bet off with Keren, I thought that was me stepping forwards; admitting that my feelings were more than they appeared and acting on them in order to fix things. But I've still been lost in my mind for the past two weeks, perhaps even more so than I usually am. But that's not all my fault, or Potter's, and I'm not just saying this to blame my feelings on others. That rumour surrounding me, the one that's been plaguing me ever since I first noticed the heads turning and shaking, the wide eyes and mouths and excited whispers, is true-

'_That Davis girl has some real issues…'_

'_I heard her mum and dad disowned her…'_

'… _She threw things and her mum was crying. She's insane!'_

'_There was blood everywhere!'_

'_She should be taken to Mungos. Imagine trying to physically hurt your family! I would disown her too…'_

-to an extent. Perhaps the story started out true, but the school has been playing one massive game of Chinese Whispers and now people are talking about terrible, _terrible_ things – that I stabbed my mum with the glass, that the authorities had to be called, that I'm on my last chance and I could break it by hurting any one of the many teenagers at school, my supposed "friends", at any second. Those who buy into all of that don't see me as the funny weird girl anymore. Some people are genuinely scared of me. You can't begin to imagine the crap I've been getting from Michaela Nott. I know she's the one who started turning the rumours from sympathetic retellings into safety warnings. That much is obvious. But she wasn't the one to let the news loose in the first place – she wasn't there on New Years. The only person at the school who knew of my family dispute, as far as I'm aware, was Al.

So now I'm wide awake and wandering around the school in the dead of night, head reeling. I don't care if I get caught. I just need to do something impulsive – something with risks that will keep my mind alert and away from my knotted thoughts. At least, that's what I thought this was for at first, when I was creeping through the dungeons, scared, wand in front of me and the dim torchlight casting shadows of the serpents' mouths, sharp fangs and all, down to swallow me. Then there was the entrance hall: a big black mass of space I had to clamber through without walking into anything, fearing I was going to meet something unwanted at any moment, the snores of the painted figures inhaling and exhaling in chorus. But now, as I reach the second floor corridor, silver moonlight pooling in puddles ahead and flickering over me as I walk in and out of them, I realise that this little night trip was my second subconscious decision to advance my feelings.

My first was to end the bet, to rid myself of the way I've been using Al. And now I am here, in the silvery halls, to dissect my thoughts and craft myself a clear path. I've had my oh-so-useful lists in my diary – my aims to meet authors and bands and to become the world's first head spy-witch of a superhero cooperation, like Nick Fury (eye patch and all) but even more badass – but in life itself I have always been winging it. I have never made a _conscious_ decision. I never said, _'okay, Heidi, you're going to sit your parents down and tell them how you feel, then you're going to listen to what they have to say and fix things the right way.' _Look how things have ended up now: my mum hasn't spoken to me since New Years, I get angry owls from my dad every day (_'How could you do this to your mother?! She's like the walking dead!'_), and the school thinks I'm an aggressive lunatic who's been disowned. I let my denial and closed mind tumble until the snowball became an avalanche and now there's no hope amongst the wreckage. I'm not going to let myself ruin my own life any longer. I hurt people around me without realising, because I'm in a mood or because they've hurt me and that somehow gives me the right to be just as petty. I do what I feel like doing, even if it's not what's best for me, let alone the people around me. I'm the worst kind of selfish. My actions seem to benefit no one. And that has to stop.

Tired of aimlessly dancing through the night of the halls, I sit cross-legged in front of one of the floor-length, arching stain glass windows in the DADA corridor. I can feel the cold of the hard brown marble floor beneath me and it raises Goosebumps on my legs, beneath my pyjama trousers. I wave my hands, fingers and arms around slowly, watching their shadows morph and twist in the coloured light around me, cast from the pale moonlight on the glass. In the day the castle is joyous and exciting, full of traditional architecture, artefacts and magic, but at night it is beautiful – eerie and mysterious apart from these few spots; the silver corridors – and sitting here, bathing in the colour and the silence, I feel peaceful. A peace of mind that I wish could follow me wherever I go, whatever I face. I don't know if this is achievable, but I can try, starting with answering my questions.

Can I trust Potter?

Honestly, yes. I know you were probably expecting me to be furious with Al, accusing him of telling everyone about my mum and me, but that is not something he would do. Even if he did tell, for example, Malfoy, Blondie would hardly be interested enough to tell people, but I know this could only ever be hypothetical. Al would never tell. It was someone else.

Who could it have been?

I don't care. The story is out and by "out" I mean out of control. But I don't want to be this self-involved, obsessive girl anymore. I don't care what people say about me or think of me. I've always been the strange one and now the only difference is that I'm seen as another kind of strange. I'm going to just keep being who I am, who I _truly_ am, crazy, sarcastic, hungry Heidi, and let them think what they want.

What am I going to do about my parents?

By not sorting things out with them the right way, I've now made sitting down with them an invalid option. I'm not going to just have them debate with me when I know I'm right. I will show them grace and gratitude once they realise the wrongs they have done me. My emotional explosion was long due and I have no need to apologise for it. So now I am going to wait for them to come to their senses and find their hearts again. I'll keep ignoring my dad's letters until he gets his head out of his arse and calms down. And then, hopefully, we can put this right.

What am I going to do about the game tomorrow?

I can't sit through a Quidditch match, nattering away to the crowd about how funny that Simon kid's floppy hair looks when he flies, when Al is in potential danger. Gryffindor may not be in this game, but I don't think that will stop James from interfering from the side lines. I need to be on guard and near the ground. So I've handed my commentating duties over to Lysander Scamander, the adorably cookie Hufflepuff second year. His hair is so fluffy and blonde I swear he is secretly a unicorn, so how could he do wrong?

I just wish Potter would have dropped his persistent pride, have seen sense, and opted out of the game, then I wouldn't have this torturing, squirming feeling as the grandfather clock in the DADA classroom nearby chimes midnight. The game is today. Why couldn't our school sport be chess? It is mind numbingly boring and safe and it works as a contraceptive against teenage pregnancy in itself – bloody bingo! I'm not seeing the down side, professors. Oh! Oh! We could play bingo! _Yes!_ We could dress up as old people and hobble around, laughing at those of us who are still menstruating and all of the gossip would turn to, '_that cheeky bitch is eyeing up my numbers!'_

I have come to realise that my imagination is far too wild and vivid for my own good…

The last dull ding of the clock rings out in waves on the quiet air and I stand and start walking again, actually feeling rather happy, all things considered. I know what I am doing now. I can go back to musing pointless things and yelling at cats during the hungry distress of the hour before dinner.

I watch my furry slipper boots as I softly stroll past the sleeping paintings on the walls, in and out of the shadows.

Since when do I walk so much? Eating and reading my troubles away may not have gotten me anywhere up to this point, but it was most definitely less exhausting and more enjoyable, y'know, when characters weren't DYING HORRIBLY AND UNEXPECTEDLY – THAT'S RIGHT SUZANNE COLLINS, I AM TALKING TO YOU, HOW VERY ODAIR YOU! Do muggle authors get their kicks out of killing the best characters and henceforth happiness? Because it sure feels like it when you're balling your eyes out with ice cream dribbling down your chin, while Lucifer just watches you reproachfully – stupid soulless cat!

I would be screaming all of this aloud right now, because I'm in a sassy, rage-fuelled preaching kind of mood, but I'm very aware that the entire school is sleeping, apart from the ghosts and the caretaker whom no one seems to see because he does all of his work at night. I have expressed my doubtless insistence that he is some form of nocturnal owl-alpaca mutation to Keren and Laura, but they didn't seem convinced. They asked for proof, but that's still on my list of many mysteries to solve.

What can I do now? I should probably sleep if I want to be sufficiently conscious to save Al's life _again_ (I am his freaking guardian angel and he doesn't even know it, he should be hailing to my greatness and polishing my shoes or whatever sort of treatment my main man Jesus got) but I feel too awake to go to bed. I'd probably just end up reading, which isn't such a bad idea actually. I think I'll stop by the kitchens for some ice cream and then stealthily sneak back to the dorm to read 'Sunset Song', ninja style-e.

Happy with this plan, I turn the corner of the second floor main corridor, to go to the stairs. But then my arm is grasped and tugged sharply back around the corner. In the rushed confusion of those few seconds I glance down at my arm and see nothing. But then nothing is peeled away and next thing I know I am pulled up against a body, cinnamon, mint and fir tree washes over me, and the body's other arm pulls the blanket above him back down to cover the both of us, just before Peeves floats by, whistling what I swear is that muggle song "hips don't lie" (I didn't even know hips could talk in the first place. Muggles are weird).

I glare boredly up into the dark and, of course, there smirks a wild Potter.

'Isn't stalking me under an invisibility cloak a little bit desperate and – I don't know – _creepy_?' I demand in a whisper, cautiously peering at Peeves away down the corridor.

He smirks. My fist clenches.

'Well, I always could have left you to Peeves' singing and screaming: "Heidi-weidi is out of beddy-bidies!"' he imitates, letting go of me to wave his hands for full effect.

I roll my eyes, drawling, 'how gracious and selfless of you, because it's not like you don't have any ulterior motive here…'

When he shakes his head, feigning innocence, I raise an eyebrow accusingly and he sighs, 'okay, so maybe I saw you leave the common room and thought this would be the most feasible opportune moment to commence the next phase of the James plan.'

I stare at him, expressionless for a few moments, then I bark a wheezy laugh, taking in his serious tone and wide eyes. 'Whatever you say Spock-itron,' I dismiss, giving his cheek a quick pat before I head to slip from underneath the cloak.

'You said you'd help me!' he says, pulling me back and grimacing when I "accidentally" stumble upon his toes (squish, squish, mother frogger!).

I pull at his cheeks like I do when I'm bored and my little brother's chubby face just so happens to bob by. 'Yes, but right now I have my own mission,' I coo, now tousling his hair.

He whines and flaps my hands away. 'Stop touching me! I'm delicate!'

At that I hoot a honking laugh, rousing some of the drowsy painted figures around us.

His hand clamps over my mouth and he starts to shuffle down the corridor, holding me in front of him and being careful not to let the cloak slip.

As we approach the stone gargoyle that we have come to know as the headmaster's office entrance, I'm still hushedly giggling into his hand: '"I'm delicate"… Oh you're funny, Pottsy.'

I glance up at him. His face bears no amusement or irritation. His mind seems distant, while his features work on automatic as he looks around, watching out for company. His pupils dilate and expand as we carefully creep in sync down the corridor, through darkness and silvery light. As we pass the windows the fleck of bronze in his eye turns gold and the grey light casts him into stone, with his features set and chapped lips pressed, and then when we slip back into the shadows his eyes darken, his cheekbones are refined and he seems paler.

His hand loosens and frees my mouth in my silence. As the gargoyle looms over us, proud and warning, I expect him to steer us around the corner to the stairs to head to the library or something, but instead he halts in front of the beast and announces, quietly but crisply, 'Alastor Moody.'

The stone creature rises and turns. Spiralling up with it is a staircase. Thankfully, the staircase seems to have had a muffling charm placed on it in order to keep the grumbling of stone scraping against stone practically silent. We quickly step onto the stairs and Potter pulls the cloak from our heads. His arms which had been imprisoning me leave a cold absence.

I can see his chest rise and fall heavily next to me as we wind around on the stairs, as though his heart is trying to leap forwards, out of his ribcage.

Licking my dry lips and clearing my throat after my first attempt coming out as a croak, I apprehensively ask, 'why are we here?'

Don't get me wrong, I'm not scared. I just would like to know why he has dragged to the headmaster's office in the middle of the night and henceforth make blaming him a lot easier when we get caught.

He exhales deeply and silently and his posture and breathing seems to relax, like one half of his mind has just given in to the other's argument, deciding that whatever we're about to do will be best done with a calm attitude. 'There are two people I would like you to meet,' he answers, not looking at me until afterwards. 'Acquaintances who have helped me a lot since I first came across them in first year,' he says. His eyes bear the same weariness as mine, but there is also a nostalgic sort of warmth there.

I know he probably isn't up for question time right now, but honestly I can't help myself. 'I never would have thought your Halloween "James Bond" façade would ever have any truth to it, but here you are with an invisibility cloak and the password to the headmaster's office…'

I expect him to laugh unsurely or shrug, what with the nerves that are practically audibly buzzing from him, but instead he raises his eyebrows and rights his posture, sarcastic pretention oozing from him, and corrects, 'dear Davis, it is _the_ invisibility cloak.'

I roll my eyes and smirk, 'why am I not surprised _Potter?_'

It's only fair, I suppose; Chief Hazza gets the lightning scar, brother Potts gets the Marauders Map (which he's been wreaking havoc with since first year) and baby Potty gets the cloak. I'm guessing Lily Luna gets "_love_".

The gargoyle stops along with the stairs and we step off, in front of two sturdy wooden doors.

The anxiety seems to creep back into Al's shoulders and my face betrays me with worry. He sees this and mistakes it for fear of Professor Weasley catching us. Looking back at me, hands poised to push the doors open, he says, 'it's okay. _Percy_ is my uncle – I can use some "family emergency" excuse if he sees us.'

So one of the people we're meeting is not the headmaster… Who else is there in the headmaster's office? And then, just as the voice – a steady yet light, a wise, voice – sounds behind us, it dawns on me.

'Hello Mr Potter,' it greets.

Al jumps slightly, but turns to the voice with a grateful smile cracking into place. As he walks towards the frame on the wall, it says, 'we thought it best to speak with you out here. I don't think your uncle would appreciate our meeting at all hours.'

As the faint orange of the lantern in the corner spats out and engulfs us in darkness, I pull my wand from my cotton trouser pocket and announce, '_lumos_.'

Potter does the same in time with me and our voices in unison slice the air startlingly, despite their low volumes. A hesitant silence follows, assuring ourselves that we've remained unheard. But I can tell Al has plenty to say and is trying to work out where to start.

I step over to the wall where he stands, squinting, even with our lit wands, at the reflecting shine from the lights on the canvas there as the voice addresses me. 'You must be Miss Davis,' the elderly man states, no questioning in his acknowledgment.

Half-moon-lens glasses, long silvery beard and sparkling eyes. The right corner of his mouth slips into a slight knowing smile.

I blink several times just to be sure, but there he is, Albus Dumbledore, in the… paint. I've seen him in books, but I hadn't realised he had a painting here; I haven't seen him around the school walls. Well at least I can get a one-up on people who brag about finding the increasingly rare Albus Dumbledore chocolate frog card.

He appears to be standing at the forefront of a medieval throne room, the jester usually prancing around in it being zonked out in the barn a few canvases along.

His pupils, dark in the light and against his warm, yet ice-bright, irises, lift back up to Al as he asks, 'now what could intelligent students such as yourselves possibly wish to ask of an old, tiny, two-dimensional man,' he glances at me then back at Potter, nodding, 'this time?' The smile still there, pinching the wrinkles by his right eye together and suggesting that he doesn't need the answer to his question.

I look expectantly at my pact pal, wondering myself what the answer to Dumby's question is. There's plenty we can ask of him, how to give your beard that finishing silky shimmer being one of many, but I get the feeling that this is to do with the fact that Potty's bro-slice still has a roommate in his own body and we've been too busy to look further into it since we got back from the holidays.

And I fear the cat apocalypse is drawing near.

Potter wets his mouth and looks back up from his clumsily laced shoes. 'James hasn't been himself at all lately… And the more we've found out about what's been going on with him, the more it sounds like dark magic is involved,' he says unsurely. He turns his gaze to me and I nod for him to go on. 'We think he is possessed, or whatever the term may be.' His Adam's apple rhythmically moves as he swallows again.

In this light, he looks gaunt and drained, the bags under his eyes now prominent.

I chip in quietly, 'the books he's been looking at mention highly restricted dark arts. He was seen having a little ghost removal transaction from his body and then there was this whole thing with a cat and a necklace and "_vidvesopenso__", whatever that is. And then there are the points that most definitely confirm the worst: he hasn't checked out a girl since summer – seriously, not one boob – and he's __going to the library__.' Shrugging in bewilderment, I successfully conclude our findings: 'Houston-erus Snape, we have a problem.' I squint at the black tapestry diagonally behind Dumbledore. 'That's right, you're not escaping this tentative visionary!' I dramatically frame my face with my hands as the darkly adorned man, with slick black hair curtaining his passive, pale face, comes boredly brooding forwards._ I lean on Al, arm hooked on his shoulder. I sympathise, 'I understand that I can be very intimidating, but you really don't need to hide from me.'

'Really? You're doing this now?' my co-detective mutters in my ear.

I turn back to the painting and straighten myself up, taking in Snape's set-in-stone expression of "I don't give a flapjack and I will never give a freaking flapjack, but I will kill you where you stand".

'Or maybe you were just colour coordinating with your curtains, that's fine, that's just fine, don't mind me,' I mumble, rubbing the back of my neck.

His mind seeming to have been working its separate ways, Dumbledore turns his attention from the ever so unimpressed Severus Snape to us, focussing first of all on Al; a homely sheen flooding into the expression of his eyes as though he were speaking to a son.

I wonder how often he comes here, to talk to his namesakes.

Dumbledore hesitates, seeming very aware of what he means to say, and then clears his throat and starts explaining (not at all the way I'd imagine him to), 'when they say that it is what is on the inside that counts, they are speaking of your soul. Your body is merely how you see it, a system to accommodate your needs – your appearance – the flesh you feel through, yet detached to you nonetheless. Our minds, our hearts, our beliefs, the way in which we live, the very essence of our lives, our souls, are not truly one with our bodies. And so when we die, our bodies wither, and then it is down to those very beliefs to determine what happens to the soul; even I myself am not decided on such things and I, I am sure you will know, am already dead.'

Unable to help myself, I glance at Snape (remembering all Al had passed on to me about the war, from his dad), but his face is as dark as it was before, a permanent depression, a haunting loss, forever lying there, as he stares intently at Al – the green of his eyes.

I shake my head and fix my thoughts back on track. Of course, I find myself confused, as always, and ask, looking directly beyond Dumbledore's spectacles, willing him to look at me, 'that's really cute and everything, but what does this have to do with anything?'

'Your impatience and ignorance is insufferable,' Snape snaps in his hollow drawl, peeling his eyes from Potter to me.

Snake-apes! Just when I thought we were reaching friendship bracelet levels!

Before I can voice my indignity aloud though, Al comments, 'tell me about it,' and I flick his temple.

After watching Al nudge me with his elbow and vice versa for a few more seconds, Dumbledore clears his throat again and Al apologises (I just point and say, 'he started it,' then look down like an ashamed child).

A genuinely amused smile finds the old professor's mouth, but it vanishes as soon as the dark matter at hand flows back into his thoughts and out of his mouth: 'There is a dark magic, possibly the darkest there is, which manipulates this weak link between body and soul. It was observed as no more than myth, even in our world, for many, many years and some still believe it to be so, as only the most powerful of wizards could ever be capable of wielding it. It involves the disembodying of the soul and manoeuvring it from one vessel to another. Most often through death and murder.' His gaze turns grim as he sees the realisation dawn on Potter's face.

'But it can also be through possession,' the victim's brother guesses, weights piling onto his shoulders and his shadowed eyes drooping more so.

'In a sense, I believe so.' Dumbledore pauses, expressionlessly contemplating his next words. 'But I fear, in the end,' he says, 'a magic so evil can only result in the former.'

Al trails off, 'you mean James…'

'Like everything, this ancient form of magic_ will_ come to death,' Snape concludes as bluntly as possible.

Well he would be great at weddings: "you are all doomed to misery and misfortune and inevitably death. But until then, turn to page three hundred and ninety-four."

'Gesundheit,' I falsely smile and cock my head upwards. I look to the eye-rolling dark-sass-disher's bearded bestie again. 'You said that this dark magic _was_ observed as no more than myth. What changed?'

Al, scarily quiet and emerald, orbed mines far-off, subconsciously, brushes his fingers with mine and I take hold of his hand, leaving my joking behind for a moment to realise how difficult all of this must be for him.

At this gesture, his head turns to, and his eyes fall on, me, but I keep mine locked onto Dumbledore's, anxious curiosity and dread rising within me, knowing I'm not going to like his reply.

His icy pools bearing an unidentifiable darkness – not of anger or fear or hatred – he answers, clearly and, this time, without hesitation, 'not too long ago, there came a wizard, powerful but damaged, who knowingly achieved such magic seven times.'

**A/N: Okay, so I got a mood ring and it stayed "calm" the whole time I wore it, but then as soon as I started peeing it turned "adventurous"… Do I have a problem? Should I be scared?**

… **Anyway XD Please review you… magnificent… reading… delights- no that is creepy. That is indeed very creepy, I apologise.**

**Also, note that calculus at midnight is not a good idea. DON'T DO IT.**


	23. Dear Diary, He Did It Again

My Sixth Year: Parkinson, Pressure & Mr Al Potter

Harry Potter: Next Generation Fan Fiction

**A/N: BONJOUR MY RUSSIAN BANANAS. I really don't know… It's late, okay, stop it with the judgy thingy. Thank you for the reviews and follows and favourites and stuffs, and for sticking with me through this tragic strive of doing my homework and writing and resisting the temptation of staying up all night on tumblr – hah, I kid, one does not simply **_**resist**_** the temptation of tumblr.**

**Anyways, here is your chapter! It clears up a lot of what's going on with Heidi and her feels and I'm not going to say anymore so that you can find out for yourself ;3**

**Please review/follow/favourite if you like it! :D**

**Chapter 23: Dear Diary, He Did It Again.**

I flick through the browning pages of my diary; ink blotched, smeared, inscribed and doodled (along with many accurate diagrams of my hellish hormonal mood swings when Mother Nature comes rather violently knocking).

'_Dear diary,_

_I'm in shock. I was prepared- I made sure I was ready… for James. I keep telling myself that I was looking for James. Yes. He was the one I was expecting. That's why I didn't make it in time – he wasn't the one who hurt him – it was someone I had no reason to doubt or keep an eye on. When Adrian demanded Rose to let him be her Seeker, I just thought he wanted to stop her complaining and worrying. But he clearly had other ideas. It was him. Adrian sent him falling, again. He made it look like an accident too, but then again I suppose it was, seeing as there is no way in hell that Adrian would hurt someone, especially someone he's never properly spoken to. He was compelled in some way to do it – most likely by the Imperius Curse. There's no question about it, it was James. All year it has been James and it will always be James unless I get off my arse and stop talking about taking him down so that I can actually _take him down_. Once I pry this cat from its curled up position, uncomfortably close to my crotch, that is exactly what I am going to do. You'll probably hear from me when all of this actually hits home, on whatever planet my mind has been on lately._'

My eyes scroll down to the extra note taken five minutes later, smile lines wryly creasing at each:

'_Okay so I am still in bed. My determination didn't really stretch far past removing the cat from my nether regions. I'll try tomorrow. And fail. And try again – the usual._'

This is indisputably accurate.

With bitter amusement, I turn to the next entry:

'_Dear Diary,_

_A promise is a promise. I did say that you would get to endure the delights of my depressed moaning soon and you can't say that I'm not good at delivering such things – I'm British, complaining is my super strength, like the Hulk has his, except I'm less green and more articulate- sorry, I'm keeping you from hearing my crappy thoughts_…'

I cringe away from my sappy, pathetic word wallowing and slap the page over, finding the next entry to be similar, but more bearable:

'_Dear diary,_

_I'm starting to consider taking up one of these beds myself. I feel physically sick, just watching him, hoping that next time I look up from writing his eyes will be open, green and sparkling, confused and dazed, with the audio reprimand to play alongside them: 'what happened?' He would pull the sheets from himself and scramble from the bed, before fainting back onto it, saying, 'I… I remember Vector, Adrian Vector- he- did he push me? I… We should be chasing James. He's in danger. We need to get his notebook and save him from whoever's taken over him… My brother wouldn't hurt me, no matter what we've been through- he would save me- I need to do the same- for him- I can't just sit here- wait, why weren't you commentating the game? I thought we agreed that you would be at the podium so I could keep an eye on you? This is all wrong- I shouldn't be in this bed… What happened?'_

_The standard reply would be, 'I'm sorry. I'll tell you everything, just calm down,' but I don't know what happened and I'm not sorry; I'm not sorry for protecting him. If this were to be true, if he were awake and desperately gawking up at me, dishevelled and pasty and tangled in the hospital bed sheets, I would simply say, 'I don't know. You should rest.' I would be thinking, 'HOLY BALLS, YOU'RE ALIVE. YOU HAVE NOT LEFT ME TO RUN AWAY FROM YOUR SCARY, CURLY BROTHER ALONE. PLEASE DON'T HATE ME AND STUFF,' along with many whale-like noises of exasperation, but what we think and what we say are very different things._

_In fact, even what we consciously think and subconsciously so are different. My words would be dismissive, yet I would feel relieved. I would consciously, and selfishly, sing praise for the fact that I wouldn't have to face James alone. But that would just be so to hide the fact that I would really be thinking about how genuinely relieved I am for his eyes being open. For, despite this irritating self-contradiction that would no doubt ensue, I would really like to feel such relief right now. I'm driving myself mad, imagining all of these arguments with him, awake. It's almost as though I'm arguing with myself. I think of something he'd be mad at me for and then I find the words I can imagine him slurring in reply._

_I can understand his hypothetical anger though. We're supposed to be a team – when we make plans, we should stick to them – but I could never have borne being cooped up with the professors, getting yelled at by the headmaster because I've not been commentating due to being engrossed in Al's every move, waiting for something to go wrong. So I stayed on the ground, hidden behind the open beams of the stands closest to the team changing rooms, wand poised and prepared to take action if James showed up. I wasn't stupid enough to believe that James would come to see the game. Can you honestly imagine a dark wizard wearing a scarf and a foam finger, taking time out from committing your everyday mass homicide and preparations for bringing the dead back to life to support his "vessel's" (as Dumbledore put it) classmates in their sport? But I wasn't naive enough to think that he wouldn't show up at all. Well, I guess James didn't directly do the damage this time. This time he cursed Adrian to do his bidding. Just a slight snag at him as they both went for the Snitch was all it took for the nearby Bludger to come whirling into Al, sending him crashing into the tapestry of the stands and falling to the ground. It had to look like an accident. What with all of the potential for casually offing people in it, whoever is possessing James wouldn't want Quidditch to be off the table, and so an accident it has been decreed and the next game is at the end of February, as scheduled. The only thing that gave the incident's deliberate purpose away was Adrian's face: blank, emotionless, completely non-shocked or surprised by the fact that he just sent one of his classmates falling to the grass._

_I remember running over to Al, heart thumping with my flying feet. This time – something I shouldn't have to be saying, seeing as this whole "falling to his death" thing shouldn't be such a regular occurrence – he landed truly and roughly on the ground, but thankfully the height wasn't nearly as great as the last time, so it wasn't _as _fatal – quite the reassurance, huh? Blood stained the neck of his robes in smudges and through his hair, from where he hit his head on the stands. The fall itself didn't do too much damage – a sprained ankle and some bruising. He also had reddening bruises blotching across his face, neck and shoulder from the Bludger's impact, which could have broken his neck and paralysed or killed him, had it been greater. The most worrying part was his loss of conscience and the bleeding from his head, though, luckily, Madam Pomfrey was able to stop the flow before it could do any serious damage._

_Waiting for Pom-pom to allow me to see him, I remember wanting to cry. I was still in shock from it all: Adrian's robotic expression, my helplessness and uselessness as I realised what was happening too late, the fact that I failed – I failed Al. He didn't want me to go out of my way for him, only for James, but I did anyway and I failed._

_He was more than hurt. He could have died, again. My pulse was hammering in my throat and my swarming nerves and remorse had spread all over. I couldn't cry. I just choked every time I felt myself drawing near to it. That's why I haven't been able to fill you in properly until now. Those few seconds held a lot to comprehend. It's been difficult to get my head around it, especially in this state and with it all happening right after the night I met the past headmasters, y'know, when they aloofly dropped the bomb that Voldemort used the same magic James has been looking into. Al said he had checked with his dad that he was sure Voldemort was gone, as opposed to only a little bit dead, so we're left to think of other fantastic options, such as death eaters._

_After the kick-off of the "kick James' arse" scheme, I've been trying to focus more on this stuff. It may not exactly be any more sunshine and rainbows than my current situation with the somewhat comatose Smirky here, but it's something to strive for, it will get us somewhere and it works as a distraction for me. I can't explain the ties I've made here. They're all knotted and twisted. But in the time I've sat here, yammering to you, it has become clear as the untouched water glass next to me that I care for Potter. It doesn't even pain me to admit it. I refuse to let either of us die – not this year, not ever. Let's be honest, we're too pretty to waste. So for now I guess I just need to push on and hope, but I _will _solve this James thing. I owe it to Al, and myself. Soon enough I'll force myself from this ridiculously comfortable chair and lamely feign the superhero. I will fix things._'

A half-hearted smile wanders across my face and disappears. I've been finding it quite difficult to be wholehearted in anything other than my religious visits to this chair, by this bed – this body in front of me. Though, luckily for Keren and Laura, my humour just so happens to be of the bitterness-fuelled, sarcastic type, so that's been exceeding even its usual fabulous standards.

The promise at the end of that last entry lingers in my mind. I've yet to "fix things". It has only been two days since I made such a promise, but I feel like I'm not trying and while I feel this deflated and useless, I don't think I will ever see it through. And it infuriates me. It's things like this that drive me to think so poorly of myself, and to think so often of myself.

I hug the open pages of the leather-bound diary to my chest and exhale deeply through my nose, my eyes trailing up and downhis long, leanly muscled, limp form and hating myself for not saving him. With that heavy breath, I become suddenly aware of the desolate, sombre air of the room. It's cold and brightly grey with the snowy skies shining through the large windows. Every other bed and visiting seat is empty and ghostly untouched. The only other movement in the room is that of the dust swirling around the thin, white sheen of the curtains and the hands of the wall clock plodding along with the minutes. The only sounds are my breathing, the clock ticking and the muffled, dull mumble of Professor Binns in the classroom across the corridor. I see the gentle rise and fall of Al's chest, but he makes no sound.

With all of my trousers and jeans with the elves for washing, I play self consciously with the hem of my skirt, uncomfortable with the alien feeling of the cool air brushing my naked legs. The skin of my arms rises in little bumps as the Hospital Wing doors sweep open and Madam Pomfrey comes bustling through, bringing with her the chill from her snowy trek to the greenhouses for supplies.

She mutters to herself (something about Hagrid, mandrakes and a lotion of sorts? I don't want to know) as she sets things in their right cabinets and gives me a critical look before shuffling back into her mysterious office. She must think me… Strange? I don't know. Perhaps she was just showing concern or sympathy for me. I doubt it. Most likely she's baffled by my persistent visits despite their being no conscious being to greet. Though, if he were awake she would probably shoo me away to give him a check up, so I'm guessing she sees visiting in general as pointless.

As her door clicks shut my gaze returns to his peaceful face, gaunt, but smooth – peaceful nonetheless.

It could just be the light, but he looks even paler now. He's been out for about four days. I could probably count you the exact hours and minutes, given my heightened anxiety and the many diary entries I've written since Quidditch incident 2.0. I don't think there's any need to explain myself though. After all, it's lonely and suffocating sitting here, waiting for him to wake up – I have to let it all out somewhere, don't I – all the anger; the remorse and regret; even the self-loathing – or nothing is going to get better.

I've felt like this a lot recently, like nothing is going to get better. Everything that was supposed to be great about this year has turned around on itself completely: I wasn't even keeping myself away from boys, it was more like I had no interest at all – the idea of romance tended to make me want to vomit – yet I fancied the cute little dorky particles out of Adrian, until his parents died and everything fell to shiesse, and then I've managed to get myself caught up in _something_ with Potter. I stepped through the castle doors with a determination to win a pointless bet and a hunger for mash potato – okay, so the second one remains, but still. When I woke up that first Monday morning, James never crossed my mind in the slightest, he never really had, yet now he's all I think about, right next to his brother. But worst of all, I came here with the idea that I was actually going to buckle down, do well in my exams – find myself. I haven't found myself. I'm still floating in space like the sarcastic air head I always have been, and you know what annoys me the most? I can never think well of myself. How am I supposed to figure out who I am and what my purpose is in life if I don't believe in myself? I'm so close minded and selfish and I get swallowed up by my surroundings so easily. I've always been the clumsy, weird one, but there's this side of me that I've been pushing away, that I don't know, and that I fear I will never learn to embrace – there is good in me, beyond the barrier closing my mind and my selfishness, but, for some reason, I never seem to want to see good in myself. I think sometimes it's easier to load everything onto yourself, to pity yourself, to be sick of yourself, because then you have something to blame for all of the stupid, stupid, _stupid_ things you do. It's a horrible way to be – so self involved and deluded, even dangerous. That's why I need to find myself. The sooner I become the person I truly am and want to be, the sooner I will be able to trust myself, believe in myself, and have others feel the same way about me. My friends say they love me, but right now I just don't _see it_. I don't see how someone can love me, especially when I do them wrong – when I put myself first. I don't get how I can feel this way about myself, but still have this absolute need for self-preservation. I'm always so confused. My head is like Daedalus' labyrinth, but without the aggressive Minotaur and with more sarcastic llamas, and sassy unicorns (somehow these are bad things) and no way out.

And you know what? I_ admire_ Al. He would put everything on the line for his brother, because even though they've had some pretty serious spats in their relationship, when it comes down to it, he still loves him and has faith in him. He may have his sarcastic side like me, we are in fact very similar, but the key difference between us is that he knows who he is – he has found himself completely. That gentleness to him, his caring and animation – when that little dimple forms and his eyes light up – that is his good coming through. I don't have that. I admire him. I envy him. And I don't think a day goes by in which I don't long to know what he thinks of me. The only people who have managed to make me care for them enough to actually give a crap about what they think of me are Keren, Laura, my siblings, when they are not being squawking little banshees, and now him. I am extremely aloof and confident in myself despite my issues, so when you get to the point when your opinion actually means a lot to me, that's a big deal.

I went straight from my bitter numbness to blotching tears onto the ink of my diary pages when I first came to visit him on Saturday night. Looking back to that first DADA class, when "my stranger" took my textbook from me and I had bits of water balloon in my bra, I could never have predicted myself feeling this way about Potter. I don't know what "this way" is or if it's a good way to feel – smart or even safe– or a really bad idea, but it's how I feel and I won't let this happen to him again. I will not, I cannot, traipse back in here to find his chest still or a bloodier mess on the pillows than when he was carried in on Saturday. Feeling "this way" is quite dangerous, attaching yourself to someone like this. It calls for sacrifice, openness and honesty. Am I prepared for that? And then there's heartbreak: when something like this happens and everything inside you smashes and evaporates, and then you're just left to ache…

My eyelids flutter over my dry eyes as I pull myself from my spiralling thoughts, realising that I've been staring at Al's face for an unnaturally long time without blinking. I slowly bring my diary down from the wool of my chest to sit it open in my lap and pull my jumper sleeves back from covering my winter-and-potions-roughened hands. Then I rummage in my bag, coming across the many suspiciously coloured Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans that Malfoy so kindly put there when he joined me last visit, because he is _twelve_, and I pull out my favourite quill, a dainty charcoal feather from a Greater Sooty Owl , speckled with little dots of silvery blue. And then I sit.

I don't know what to write. Ever seen me speechless? Yeah, me neither.

I idly brush the feather along the blank parchment, watching the way the each grey strand bends and shapes with the movement, bunching together as one, soft, beautiful piece of plumage.

For some people, diaries are there for documenting their lives; for some people, diaries are horrifically embarrassing. My diary, like many others', is for letting all hell break loose from my mind, to the pages. Right now hell is far from quiet, but I don't know how to express it.

I guess there's one thing I need to ask myself: how do I feel and why?

I twirl the quill in my fingers, and place the tip above the page after swiftly dipping it in my ink pot. I pause. I think. I write:

'Dear Diary,

When I wandered the halls on Friday night, I was optimistic. I thought of my issues and found ways to resolve them. I feel different now, which is okay, considering the circumstances, but why should my plans be any different? I want to be the best I can be, not just to put my own mind at rest, but for the sakes of the people I love.

Watching him now, I feel like I know how to describe my feelings for him, I just don't want to admit it, or maybe I'm just not quite sure yet. But when I find myself, I hope that that Heidi will know. And I hope he likes her.'

**A/N: THE MOOD RING STRIKES AGAIN: okay, so apparently when I'm toasting bagels, I feel romantic. This one, I completely understand.**

**Please review and give me your thoughts on Heidi's thoughts, for me to think about! That's deeper and more philosophical than… kittens. Yes, Katie, because kittens are philosophical- I'm going to go now.**


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